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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

3. Download a Word or OpenDoc dataset somehow along with the label
template and issue a command to Word to do the merge.

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).

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

On Feb 7, 8:31*am, dawn <dawnwolth... (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
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.

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.

On Feb 6, 8:25*pm, Ross Ferris <ro... (AT) stamina (DOT) com.au> wrote:
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.

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

On 2011-02-07 08:11:04 -0500, dawn <dawnwolthuis (AT) gmail (DOT) com> said:

Why have a dependency on MS Word? Will every user have it? Why not
use RTF? It's a lot lighter, pretty much a cross-platform standard.
MS Word will open it, but you don't need MS Word because every copy of
Windows has the WordPad RTF editor. Mac comes with TextEdit, and I'm
sure *nix must have a default RTF editor as well.

For something as simple as labels, I think RTF would be a lot easier to
work with.

--
Kevin Powick

On Feb 7, 7:56*am, Kevin Powick <nos... (AT) spamless (DOT) com> wrote:
I agree. Opening and manipulating an RTF doc from an mv environment is
a piece of cake. The accuterm web site (asent.com) has a sample script
and subroutine that shows how to execute a ms-word mailmerge process,
but you could also just use an RTF doc to print pretty. Plus, I don't
think RTF documents support macros; therefore they are "safer" to
distribute and less likely to be intercepted by anti-virus and other
security devices.

/Scott Ballinger
Pareto Corporation
Edmonds WA USA
206 713 6006

On 02/07/2011 09:16 AM, Scott Ballinger wrote:
+1 here on RTF. Makes more sense to me.
--
Cheers, SDM -- a 21st Century Schizoid Man
Systems Theory project website: http://systemstheory.net
find us on MySpace, GarageBand, Reverb Nation, Last FM, CDBaby
free MP3s of Systems Theory, Mike Dickson & Greg Amov music at
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On Feb 7, 9:56*am, Kevin Powick <nos... (AT) spamless (DOT) com> wrote:
I was thinking there was some xml format that was more current than
rtf, but otherwise it sounds reasonable. I included OpenDoc in the
subject because I specifically DO NOT want to assume the user has
Word. Is rtf still where we are on cross-platform rich text?

OK. I don't know why we were on to something else on this front. I
will do some googling around. Thanks. --dawn
*

On Feb 7, 11:16*am, Scott Ballinger <scott.ballin... (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
Thanks Scott. The accuterm article looks helpful at first glance. --
dawn