Label Printing

[Mike Day]

We're still using Impression (on an Acorn Risc PC) here for printing labels, but sadly for little else these days.

What's missing in Xara for me to be able to do the same job (please correct me if I'm wrong!) is the ability to have an object repeating several times on the same page ie. in Impression I can update a logo for example on my label set and each instance of the graphic is updated.

Also Xara appears to print text area outlines when they are empty (is this fixable?)

[Soquili]

Hello Mike,

Impression is a desktop publishing application, if I have my facts correct.

Xtreme is a graphics drawing application that can also do some bitmap editing and export to html for a web page. I'm afraid there are few if any desktop publishing features in Xtreme. However, this does not prevent people from using Xtreme to create documents for print.

[MarcT]

I would like to have object instances in Xtreme.

Illustrator, Inkscape and CorelDraw all have this feature.

Marc

[Albacore]

Gosh I haven't used Impression for about 9 years now! great programme, beat all other DTP programme around at that time costing 3 to 4 times the price. Have a look at this topic in the Adobe Illustrator board: http://talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?t=30275

If it was me being asked to do graphical labels, say with address, I would stick with Impression or some other DTP programme which can use a CSV file. They are a couple around which are free and you can download them to you PC. One is Serif's Page Plus and if used to Impression you will like this and it also exports to PDF: http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/software/PagePlus/. The other is Avery's software and you will find it here which you can use stand alone or with MS Office: http://www.avery.co.uk/avery/en_gb/T...tware/Software

Yes I think Xara should expand in this area it would save loads of time. It would not be really important to me for it to import and use a CSV file to fill in data on the labels but an improvement in the Transform Tool or whatever you want to call it.

[Nostaw]

We're still using Impression (on an Acorn Risc PC) here for printing labels, but sadly for little else these days.

What's missing in Xara for me to be able to do the same job (please correct me if I'm wrong!) is the ability to have an object repeating several times on the same page ie. in Impression I can update a logo for example on my label set and each instance of the graphic is updated.

Also Xara appears to print text area outlines when they are empty (is this fixable?)

Oh my, you still have an Acorn and you're still using it these days? Respect! If it still works with your workflow, why not.

I'm having the same (or similar) issue as you to print lables with automatically filling up label fields (e.g. for name tags).
The way I do it is i do the entire label design in Xara (with place holders for names and other information), export a high resolution PNG, import it into Microsoft Publisher (yuck but hey..), and from there I do a Mail Merge form an supplied excel sheet where someone else entered all information (e.g. Guest List with various details such as Company, Position...). Then you can export as a PDF (by printing using CutePDF printer driver) with lets say 10 labels per A4 page. This seems to works good but it's a couple of extra steps, plus Microsoft Publisher is painful to work with. But, you get the job done by the end of the day. If you work in an office environment like me where someone else enters information in an excel sheet, you can't get around using Office software.

[Mark (theKeeper)]

Have you guys tried Blending and Duplicating?

I know it might sound a lil' odd for this function, but i think it might be able to take out a large chunk of the extra time needed to update each label.

THE METHOD:
From scratch... create the first and last labels in the first (left most) column of your label template. Now use the Blend tool to create the in-between copies.

Duplicate the first column repeatedly to fill the template across the page. The trick to the duping function working here is to set the duplicate distance (the 'X' axis distance in Page Options/General tab) to match, or be a few pixels wider than, the width of your labels. Whatever the distance needs to be to line up on your labels. You'll need to set the 'Y' axis distance to 0. Press Ctrl+Alt+D to perform the duping.

Then, when needed, simply edit/change the 1st/last labels in the first column (the blending of them will update all the in-between copies), then delete the other old duplicated columns to the right, and Duplicate the first column over again.

TIP: I've noticed that it helps to create a solid shape behind the text for the label. I think it helps the Blend tool space more accurately to match the template. If you're just using plain text on the labels just create a white rectangle or square matching the size of a single label. Then Group the text to the shape before Blending.

Is this making sense?
I've experimented with this a bit and it seems to work pretty well. The only small snafu one might have is getting the blended copies to match the layout of the label template to your liking. But if you're just doing plain address labels or the like, this method might work just fine. Try it and see. :-)>

I hope i'm understanding correctly your needs here.
Any questions/clarifications needed just ask.

peace

Mark...

[AntonM]

Certainly XXP does not claim to be a DTP app, but it has gained quite a few DTP-like components over time, and needs only a few more to become very like Impression (its erstwhile stablemate!). I'm not suggesting that Xara should go further along that road, but it would be really nice if they did -- then I could ditch Word entirely!

Are object instances restricted to DTP apps, and have they no place in drawing apps like XXP? IIRC, Draw+ on the Acorn had them available, and it was a drawing app. But that was then, and those were the days...

(I've still got an Iyonix, btw)