Re: Printing labels (what a surprise!)

[Yunus Emre Selçuk <selcukyu@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Colleauges,

Spine label printing is no longer a hassle for our library for a long 
time. However, we aren't using Millenium for label printing. We are 
using guicat for this purpose. Labels are printed to a file with a text 
only printer and then the file is opened and printed to actual labels by 
a custom software I wrote. I have built this procedure when we were 
using Windows 98 in staff PC's. In 98, text only printers can be 
configured so that they put another correctly printable character 
instead of the diacritics that cannot be written correctly. I mapped the 
Turkish diacritics to characters that cannot appear on labels, such as 
*,#, etc. Here is the outline of our procedure :

1. Catalogers create label queue with guicat and print to a file with 
extension .prn. The file resides on the PC that the laser printer (HP 
6P) we use for labels is attached to.
2. The text only printer is configured to map Turkish diacritics to 
special characters such as *,#, etc. Therefore the .prn file has special 
characters instead of *,#, etc.
3. A part-time student uses a program that is coded by me for printing 
labels. My program does the inverse mapping to replace the special 
characters to correct diacritics and prepares the correct printing 
layout according to its configuration. This configuration contains 
measurements of the labels such as how many rows and columns of labels 
there in one sheet of paper and the necessary distances between edges of 
adjacent labels.

When we decided to upgrade to Windows 2000 for better security and patch 
management, we couldn't do that due to a bug in text only printing of 
w2k. W2k doesn't allow a character-based mapping, only a codepage can be 
assigned. Although it is set up to use the correct codepage for Turkish, 
it still types the diacritics wrong! However, Windows XP handles Turkish 
diacritics correct for text only printer.

Dear Carol, other than the advices posted, I can add the following :

- Try Windows XP, it's better when handling diacritics.
- If you have someone who can write code in your library, tell him/her 
about our procedure and ask if s/he can implement a similar one.
- When helping a friend to print address labels by using data residing 
in Excel, we noticed that Avery labels come with an excellent program, 
which uses an Excel or Access file as a source and creates a printable 
Word file. You select which type of Avery labels you have, select which 
fields to be written on each label and arrange the layout of these 
fields. If you can't find a type of Avery labels that is the correct 
size you need, or do not like to tied to only one vendor, a VBS macro in 
Word can be coded to do the same task as the Avery label wizard.

I wish I could send my code to you, but it's in Turkish and not 
throughoutly tested - It works fine in the working environment of our 
library but due to Murphy's law, it will require bug fixes as well as 
translation, which means time, and unfortunately time is short for me - 
I need to finish my Ph.D thesis as soon as possible while honoring my 
duties at the library. Maybe we can work together after I graduate? 
However, it should take a much shorter time for you to come up with a 
solution by using any recommendation sent by fellow colleauges.

Sincerely,

Yunus

Carol Gyger wrote:

> Please, please let me know if you find a solution to this.  We have
> struggled with this and finally threw up our hands and stop printing
> diacritics on spine labels.  Figuring this out has been on my "to do"
> list for a very long time.
>
> -carol
>
> Carol Gyger
> Systems Administrator
> Fort Collins Public Library
> 201 Peterson St.
> Fort Collins CO  80524
> (970)221-6716
> gyger@xxxxxxxxxx
>
>  


--
Yunus Emre Selçuk
İTÜ Merkez Kütüphane,
Sistem Yöneticisi
 	Yunus Emre Selcuk
Istanbul Technical University, Central Library
System Administrator

Tel : +90 - 212 - 285 33 00
Fax : +90 - 212 - 285 33 02
Mail : selcukyu@xxxxxxxxxx



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