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Re: Word/OpenDoc labels download

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On Feb 6, 8:25 pm, Ross Ferris <ro...@stamina.com.au> wrote:
> On Feb 7, 8:31 am, dawn <dawnwolth...@gmail.com> wrote:
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> > I'm just starting to think about this one, but it relates a bit to the
> > Excel chatter here, so I'm just gonna ask. I'll warn you that the last
> > time I coded up a mail merge with a word processor it was with
> > WordMark (ok, maybe Word Perfect, but not Word). My knowledge of Word
> > is only as an end-user typing directly into it.
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> > Problem statement:
> > In a web-based software application where we can make few assumptions
> > about what software users have on their system, the user wants to
> > print nametags by clicking a button on a web page.
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> > Current scenario:
> > Currently the user downloads a .csv, opens it in Excel, creates the
> > template in Word for the mail merge with the Excel names and generates
> > the nametags. So, once the spreadsheet is downloaded, our software is
> > out of the mix. We will keep this option as it is very flexible, but
> > want to add that click-the-button option too.
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> > Possible solutions that pop to mind without researching it:
> > 1. Direct to a pdf file that users can print. If we do this, then the
> > user cannot tweak the document at all. They might want to do this if
> > they have data from elsewhere that also need to turn into nametags or
> > if they want to adjust the format of the label for some reason (not
> > centering names, for example, if they have a graphic on the labels)
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> > 2. Download a file to open in Word or OpenDoc that shows the labels
> > already generated with us doing the "mail merge" on the server.
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> > 3. Download a Word or OpenDoc dataset somehow along with the label
> > template and issue a command to Word to do the merge.
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> > I just did a little test with a few different options for the internet
> > media type such as application/vnd.openxmlformats-
> > officedocument.wordprocessingml.document and application/vnd.ms-word.
> > I have the mechanics working, so that Word popped up when it should,
> > for example. I don't know which one to pick nor what markup to use
> > (like how to do a line feed, which I am guessing depends on the media
> > type).
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> > Since I'm just starting to think about this, I might be thinking all
> > wrong, so any and all suggestions on web users printing labels
> > (nametags) from the software would be welcome.  Thanks.  --dawn
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> Why not just format the "Labels" as a web page .... or more
> specifically a table with each "label" being a cell .... can "easily"
> cut/paste into "whatever" product they want to use to tweak OR ...
> they just print as is.

I guess I should at least include this among the possible options. I
was thinking it would be better to avoid web browser differences with
something that needs to line up precisely with a printer form (avery
labels, for example). It isn't just cross-browser but the settings
that each person has in their browsers, which are not quite as obvious
to users, I think, in how to change them -- e.g. margins, headers,
footers (I'm in Chrome right now and just looked to see if I could
find this quickly and didn't).

An html set of labels also has the same issue that pdf's have in that
if the user wants to add or change anything with the label, then we
have to support those features up front too, rather than the user able
to make adjustments in Word.

> Next "tweak" is to let them design label layout .... would suggest you
> simply provide 1 or 2 "standard" layouts with options for user-
> supplied graphic etc.

I didn't want to do the graphic placement thing on the server side.
There are graphics that people want behind the words and next to it,
whether top, bottom, left, right or center. I was thinking that 10
layouts would be minimum and I didn't want to get into writing a
layout manager with click and drag and all for this purpose. That's
why I was thinking that Word had what people wanted (recognizing not
everyone has Word).

However, if you have had success with the html approach for labels/
nametags, I'll check it out further.  Thanks a bunch.  --dawn

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Word/OpenDoc labels download dawn <dawnwolthuis@gmail.com> - 2011-02-06 13:31 -0800
  Re: Word/OpenDoc labels download Ross Ferris <rossf@stamina.com.au> - 2011-02-06 18:25 -0800
    Re: Word/OpenDoc labels download dawn <dawnwolthuis@gmail.com> - 2011-02-07 05:11 -0800

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