mouse_cage_cards

This repo contains a python script that takes in a cage list from SoftMouse.NET and outputs an excel spreadsheet that contains notecards that can be placed at each cage. The cards can be further customized to display relevant information, such as contact info.

Here are instructions to generate the mouse cage cards:

Set up for the first time

Get the code from github

In a terminal do the following commands:

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/mfe7/mouse_cage_cards.git

Install the required python libraries

Only the very first time you've downloaded the code, run this in the terminal:

python -m pip install xlsxwriter xlrd pyyaml

Set up your contact info

Update the settings.yaml file to your custom settings, such as contact info, PI name, protocol number.

To update your cage cards

Get the Cage List from SoftMouse.NET

• Click "Cages" in the top bar
• Export the Cage List as a spreadsheet
• Re-name the downloaded spreadsheet to softmousedb.xlsx and place it in this folder (~/mouse_cage_cards). In the terminal that means:

mv ~/Downloads/<name_of_downloaded_xlsx> ~/mouse_cage_cards/softmousedb.xlsx

Re-generate the notecards

In a terminal, run:

cd ~/mouse_cage_cards
python notecard.py

• That will print out how many pieces of paper to load into the printer (split by mouseline)
• The python also generates a file called notecards.xlsx
• Open and print notecards.xlsx

Success!