yes 12345 | head -84 | barcode -p 8.5x11in -umm -t 4x21+0+0-0-12.8 -g 36x12+7+0 -m 5,0 -e CODE39 > test.ps
Hi Jim:
Where can I find the user manual for gLabels?
The offical doc at http://glabels.sourceforge.net/doc/ is almost empty.
FYI, I've found one article on how to use gLabels at, http://www.linux.com/articles/37044 you may want to link to it from your doc page.
What I am really up to is to know how I can do barcode printing with gLabels.
I tried gnu barcode and come up with this:
yes 12345 | head -84 | barcode -p 8.5x11in -umm -t 4x21+0+0-0-12.8 -g 36x12+7+0 -m 5,0 -e CODE39 > test.ps
But over 10 hours past (19 hours on wall clock) and over 80 test pages printed, I gave up trying. All my labels are still off the grid, but there is nothing further I can twist.
From google, I know gLabels was able to do barcode printing as early as Sep 2001, http://lists.linux.it/pipermail/barcode/2001-September/000036.html The latest version 0.98 of the GNU-barcode library was adapted in 0.4.4 on Aug 18th 2007, http://freshmeat.net/projects/glabels/?branch_id=17898&release_id=89165
But still there is no documentation on how to do batch barcode printing with gLabels. Could you give me a brief description on how to batch print a bunch of barcode on Avery 5167 family Address Labels, like the command above?
thanks
> FYI, I've found one article on how to use gLabels at, > http://www.linux.com/articles/37044[] > you may want to link to it from your doc page. > > What I am really up to is to know how I can do barcode printing > with gLabels.
Never mind, I figured it out in minutes. Thanks to above article and the gLabels' intuitive interface.
> I tried gnu barcode . . . But over 10 hours past (19 hours on wall clock) > and over 80 test pages printed, I gave up trying. . .
I should have tried gLabels at the first place. :-)
documented on: 2007.11.01, xpt
http://www.linux.com/articles/37044
By Joe Barr on June 28, 2004
With gLabels, the label design process is simplicity itself. You begin by picking a template that defines the size and shape of a label. I counted 232 predefined templates for everything from name tags to drawer labels to mailing labels to business cards to CD cover labels. Almost all of those were based on standard Avery forms, but there were a few oddballs too.
If you happen to pick up a package of labels that isn't predefined, you can define a template for them yourself in less than five minutes using a template designer wizard. You can create templates with measurements as granular as thousandths of an inch, just the size and shape (within limits) you specify.
Once you've chosen a template, an image of the label appears in the workspace. You can add objects to it: text, image, lines, or shapes.
To add text to the label, click on the text object icon immediately above the work area displaying the label, and then on the label itself to place a resizable rectangle that holds the text you enter. On the right side of the gLabel window, a text properties window will appear. That's where you enter the text and select the font, font size, and the style for the object. Style includes such settings as bold, color, alignment, and line spacing.
You can enter the exact size of the text rectangle in the properties window, or its exact location on the label — exact as in rounded off to the nearest thousandth of an inch. You can also drag the text object around or pull on its corners to change its shape and watch the values shown in the properties window update in real time.
gLabels lets you add shapes like rectangles and ovals to the label, then fill them with color. Click on the icon for the shape you want, then on the image. Like the text object, the shape can be modified by pulling on a corner or side and stretching it to a new location. The properties window allows you to set the line width for the object, its fill color, and its size and location. You can add straight lines in a similar manner by clicking the line object icon.
To add a graphics image to the label, simply click on the image object and then on the label to create an empty object. Use the object properties window to browse for images you want to use, then size and position them as you've done with the other objects.
Another object type of interest is the bar code object. I don't speak bar code at all, but gLabels speaks several different bar code tongues, including POSTNET, EAN, UPC, ISBN, and half a dozen others. The properties window allows you to enter the data to be encoded, select the dialect you need, and position the object.
Glabels also handles mail merge. The only source document formats available at present are simple text files, using either comma, colon, or tab separators between fields. Each line of text equates to a single record. Click on Merge Properties to point the label at the source file and indicate the type of field separation to be used, if any. Then open a text object and format it as you like. If gLabels can read your source document (it will preview the file in the Merge Properties dialog), you can select the field from the source and assign it to a field in the text box. That's all there is to creating mailing labels.
Click on File->Print to begin the printing process. The print dialog window allows you to print full sheets of labels or only a specific range of labels on the sheet. There are three optional print modes:
Outline only, so that you can test the alignment of the sheets
Mirror image, for printing on clear labels viewed through glass
Crop marks, for printing on blank stock which will be cut
The documentation warns that at the current time, the crop mark option doesn't work well on some templates.
gLabels is a feature-packed label-printing application that's easy to use. It comes with an online manual that is current as of version 1.93.2. The manual is well laid out and seems to be nearly complete. For a beta (or developer version, if you prefer), gLabels is in great shape. I'm recommending it for usage today to friends and strangers alike. There are bugs to be squashed, I'm sure, but only a few, and I'm looking forward to the 2.0 release in the near future. Kudos to Jim Evins and the rest of the development crew for a job well done.
documented on: 2007.11.01
http://www.linux.com/articles/56209
By Michael Stutz on August 10, 2006
One versatile program written for the express purpose of printing on Avery labels is Karl Fogel's Python-based LabelNation.
It outputs formatted PostScript that you can either save to a file or send directly to the print spooler, if you have a PostScript printer or a print filter that converts incoming PostScript to something that your printer understands. You can print from a database of addresses on a single run, such as for printing a mailing list, and in addition to plain text input it can also take PostScript code — which means you can print labels with graphics.
The LaTeX markup language has had a number of solutions for printing Avery labels, and they've been available for years.
While the regular LaTeX letter class is capable of making labels (with the makelabels command), they're only sized for Avery 5352 labels; for more, get and install envlab, a macro package for envelopes and labels. It understands many common Avery sizes by name, but you can also specify your own dimensions for custom labels (or envelopes).
Other potentially useful LaTeX label packages include labelmac3, for printing on Avery 6150 labels, and the labels package, which you can use to print various kinds of labels.
[ ... other writings omitted ... ]
http://www.kbarcode.net/Home.4.0.html
KBarcode is a barcode and label printing application for KDE. It can be used to print everything from simple business cards up to complex labels with several barcodes (e.g. article descriptions).
KBarcode comes with an easy to use WYSIWYG label designer, a setup wizard, batch import of data for batch printing labels (directly from the delivery note), thousands of predefined labels, database management tools and translations in many languages. Even printing more than 10.000 labels in one go is no problem for KBarcode. Data for printing can be imported from several different data sources, including SQL databases, CSV files and the KDE address book.
Additionally it is a simple barcode generator (similar to the old xbarcode you might know). All major types of barcodes like EAN, UPC, CODE39 and ISBN are supported. Even complex 2D barcodes are supported using third party tools. The generated barcodes can be directly printed or you can export them into images to use them in another application.
KBarcode is free software released under the terms of the GNU GPL.
Anonymous Coward August 11, 2006
Another great tool for working with labels is gLabels
It is a GUI (GTK+) tool for editing label layouts and printing them. It comes with a variety of templates and provides a GUI for creating custom templates as well.
Anonymous August 10, 2006
I have been using GLabels for years and it absolutely blows away everything you mentioned in your article. Its extremely easy to use and supports a very wide range of labels. Please include a mention of this fine program.
Anonymous August 10, 2006
I know I'm the fourth consecutive post mentioning gLabels, but there's a reason I feel people need to be aware that this article is incomplete. Users switching to Linux from Windows expect trivial tasks under their old OS to be similarly trivial under the new. gLabels accomplishes this with respect to printing labels. Command line programs do not. I'm not saying we should do away with, or neglect to mention the command line tools. I use CLI programs extensively. But not mentioning gLabels in this article was a major oversight.
Anonymous Coward August 11, 2006
Why not one more mention of gLabels? Because no one has mentioned gLabels DOES have a CLI. It's called 'glabels-batch'. We use it to automate printing labels from our company database at work. Of course we create the label files in the GUI. It's a very slick system.
It doesn't suprise me the articles author missed this one. I've been using Linux for about five years and constantly keep finding really cool programs hidden in obscurity. Need Windows? Not here.
Anonymous Coward August 11, 2006