I purchased a license for Panorama about 2 weeks ago and have been familiarizing myself with it. Mostly, I’ve been fumbling around figuring out the best way to approach a very specific problem.
I am working with a small company that makes ice cream and sells it in pre-packed containers in grocery stores. When they produce a single flavor of ice cream, we will need labels for that flavor. We have 8-up label stock. I might typically want to print a few sheets containing identical labels for that flavor.
A single label has to include 2 PNG files (a logo and another symbol) that are located at the top of the label along with some fixed text. The remainder of the label consists of 5 data fields of text (name, ingredients, etc.). Each data field will have its own font and size for the text
It seems that there are various possibilities for approaching this problem – Tiles, Matrix, custom report and probably others.
I thought Matrix was the way to go, but it appears not to allow for PNG Graphics based on what I see in the Help Tutorial. Maybe it does, but I don’t see how.
So, I need to print 8 identical labels on a single label sheet. The labels include PNG files and fields from the database.
What is the best approach to setting up the form for doing this? Matrix? Tile? Custom Form? Start with an Avery Label?
I am looking for some advice so that I know I am on a good path towards a solution.
Start with a Tile. Make a Data Tile the size of your label, put whatever you want on it, and choose the proper number of rows and columns, and appropriate margins. Make 8 records for each flavor.
At this point, I would probably print the entire database to a PDF, and when you need the label for a particular flavor, open it in Preview and just print that page. If you make changes in the data, print and replace the PDF.
Unfortunately the Panorama X documentation for reports and tiles isn’t as complete as I would like. You might want to download a copy of the Panorama 6 documentation and look at Chapter 21: Custom Reports. Most of the information is the same for Panorama X as it was, and definitely it will be the same for your application. You can download this here:
Keep in mind that unless you are changing the labels often, it might be easier to do in a graphics application. While I admit I have made business cards using Panorama in the past, I now do it with a business card application, which would work for these labels.
this isn’t static data like a business card. one ingredient change may impact several ice cream flavors and you would have to go through and find all the affected flavors and create new sets of labels. I want to use a database to handle that for me.
At this point I am trying to figure out how to have a single flavor label (e.g. chocolate ice cream) print on all 8 labels on a sheet. how do you did you do that when you printed business cards?
As I said, make a Data Tile the size of your label, put whatever you want on it, and choose the proper number of rows and columns, and appropriate margins. Make 8 records for each flavor.
thanks for the advice. this looks like the approach I want to take. ran into a problem.
created a second tile identical to the first tile, immediately below it.
selected a specific record I want to print. open the Form. it shows the identical flavor info in each tile. However, when I print the form, only the first tile is printed. I must be leaving out some important step.
If it is one sheet, from one record, then you should have one tile the size of the sheet. That one tile would have 8 copies of each image or text display object, positioned where the labels are on the sheet.
Use one 8.5 x 11 data tile and duplicate your info 8 times on that tile. Print to a blank sheet of paper that you can hold up over your label template and adjust the spacing until the printout alignment matches your label layout.
wondering why i have to use a tile instead of just placing the data elements on a blank form. I thought the idea of tiles was to help you space stuff on a page.
just curious. trying to understand the logic of it all.
In your case, you could do it without the tile. The tile dictates how much space a single record will occupy on the page. Without it, one record will fill the entire page. With it, data from multiple records can go on a single page.
Typically a Data Tile is repeated for as many times as it will fit on the selected page size. A small Data Tile will print several times per page. A large Data Tile may be the page. Either way, via File>Print, the Data Tile is printed as many times as there are selected records. Six small Data Tiles may fit on a single page and only one page would be printed if there are six selected records or two pages for 7 to 12 records. In all scenarios, ONE Data Tile is used in the layout, letting its size and the paper size dictate how it’s reproduced.
If you want, for example, four ice cream labels for one record in the database to be printed on a single page, use one Data Tile that is the size of the page, but repeat your layout four times on the tile.
I don’t know which bug you are referring to. A search in Bitbucket for the word “tile” tuned up several issues, most of which are resolved, but none seemed to fit our current situation.
I tried a quick test with a rectangle, a text display object, and a jpeg photograph in a form with no tile, and “printed” it as a PDF. There were no problems with that.
I just now tried it with paper size set for #10 Envelope and orientation set to Landscape, and that worked too. Maybe the fix for issue #762 also fixed the problem you were having.
I think it did. Following the link in that issue, led me to this.
