Printing Labels - Specify Starting Position

[xnay]

Greetings,

I'm a Draftsman / IT at a thriving custom cabinet business. We use high dollar ($600 per 1000) labels (52 per sheet) as a means of keeping track of each piece of the cabinet during construction. Our database is set up to allow a user to pull up an order, generate the parts list, and then print the labels for that order. Unfortunately, not every order uses a complete sheet of labels. In fact, it is not uncommon for an order to have just one label, thus wasting 51 labels. Sure, we ask the shop to return as many sheets as possible with numerous labels remaining so that we can reuse these sheets. This is cumbersome and the sheets don't always come back in the best of shape to be laser printed again.

My question: Can the database be coded to allow the user to select the label position before the job prints? If so, sample code would be greatly appreciated. Also, is there a way to code the database to accumulate multiple label print jobs in some type of spooler and then later print the multiple job as one job??

Any ideas or suggestions... or am I dreaming :|

[ronverdonk]

To start; the database has no programmable interface, it is just storage for data. Any programming handling the is done outside the database.

As you put it you don't even need a database for that. All you need to know (establishing that a sheet has 52 labels and the user always will use the first free label on a sheet) is the last used number in a (say) 13x4 matrix numberd 1 to 52. You can write that a a 'normal' flat file.

But some questions remain:
Why do you let the user choose the label number? Why not give the user the next label number in this system? Because, e.g. a user might not pick the first free label no 25, but 35.

You could 'spool' the print requests and store the print output in a file or database. But you'll need some user interaction to actually 'release' the spool and start the print.

If I talk gibberish, then I don't understand it and you'll have to explain a bit more.

Ronald :cool:

[xnay]

Thank you, Ronald, for your reply and better insight of the database. I recently came upon some code for an Access DB that pretty much did what I was looking for. It seemed that all one had to do was copy and paste his code somehow (I forget the details how) to an Access DB and a pop up box would appear before printing labels asking for a starting label position. I was hoping that something similar could be done with a MySQL DB. My reasoning behind this is to re-insert to the tray the label sheet from previous order and begin printing from the next available label on that sheet (instead of inserting a new sheet with every order). In this way, label waste is kept to a minimum. You mentioned that it's possible to 'spooI' the print requests to a file and then later realease the file for printing. In my opinion, this seems like a very nice way to get the desired result; that is, if after you released the file for printing, all of the print requests could be batched into one print request and print consecutive without having to start a new sheet with each job request spooled. If printing in this way is possible, please elaborate further. You're insight is very much appreciated.

And, BTW, You're not the one talking gibberish here, Ronald, my ignorance shows who really is :|

[ronverdonk]

Well, you can keep your data, such as the last label number, in a MySQL table.

But what I am curious about is the actual printing. What do you mean when you say "printing". Is that the process of actual putting the ink on the labels, or is that making some sort of print output file, that is stored on a stick and send to the printing dept. for the actual ink job.

And is this printing, as started by the user, done via a program on a PC?

You see, there are just more questions.

Ronald :cool: