print report data on labels?

[Sherrill Stott]

I have an app which I use to track entries for my husband's homebrew club's annual homebrewing competition. One of the reports generates a "winners list." The competition organizer announces the winners' information from the printed list at the conclusion of the competition, when ribbons and prizes are awarded to those present. The report is also output in html format for posting on the web.

The data for the winners list is grouped by category and, within category, by place (1st, 2nd or 3rd). For each winning entry in a category, it lists the place, the entry number, the number and name of the subcategory, the description (where one is given) and the name(s) of the brewer(s). Most entries are submitted by a single brewer, but some are submitted by two or even three co-brewers.

What I would like to do is print this data on labels which can be attached to the backs of the ribbons which are awarded at the end of the competition.

As an example of the label output I would like:

Category 20 Lambic & Belgian Sour Ale
1st Place - #221, Subcat. 20 c Fruit Lambic-style Ale
raspberry lambic
Bruce Stott
Sherrill Stott

Each label would have a minimum of three lines and a maximum of six.

The label genie does not seem to be able to output multiple brewers. I can get this format through a report design, but don't know how to get it to print on a standard sheet of mailing labels.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Sherrill

[russ Boehle]

RE: print report data on labels?

Hi Sherill,
I don't see the problem, A5 will treat each label as more or less a page of a report so if you can get it to print a report formatted the way you want you should be able to do the same with a label. Think of it as small pages.
Does your data print correctly if done as a report?

Russ

[Sherrill Stott]

RE: print report data on labels?

The data prints perfectly as a report. As a label, however, I haven't been able to figure out how to print the names of all the co-brewers of a single entry on the same label. The "brewers" table is the "many" in a one-to-many link. The documentation in the User Guide tells how to print a separate label for each linked child, but not how to print all the linked child records on a single label.

I thought of using a report and formatting the "page" as label size - 2.625 x 1 inch. Since the standard label sheet templates don't seem to be available for printing reports, I don't know how to convince Alpha to print 30 of these little mini-pages on an 8.5 x 11 sheet, 3 across by 10 down.

[russ Boehle]

RE: print report data on labels?

I just tried it and see the problem, it just prints the first child record. Here's a workaround. You will need to create a new table field one "category", field 2, child record 1, ... through child record 5. This will give you a table with 6 fields to print on the label. Now you have to populate the table. This can be done with an append for the category and then post the rest of the data. There are other ways to do this I am sure but this came to mind.

By the way, all this can easily be automated with saved operations and action scripting.

Hope this helps.

Russ

[Sherrill Stott]

RE: print report data on labels?

Hmm. Even easier, for future reference, would be to create the table and populate it by posting during data entry for the competition. All I would need would be the entry number and enough fields to hold brewer numbers for all the co-brewers. Actual names would be retrieved through lookups from the brewers table. Since all the links would be one-to-one, the label design should work. I would place all the names in a rich text object which could shrink as needed.

Thanks for your help.

Sherrill

[Sherrill Stott]

RE: print report data on labels?

Just wanted to let you know that I followed your suggestion and have successfully added this feature to my app.

Thanks again.

Sherrill

[russ Boehle]

RE: print report data on labels?

Excellent

Glad it worked.

Russ