question about printing

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Butch Ammon" <butch at rich.srcoils.com>
To: <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2005 2:23 PM
Subject: question about printing


>> It would probably help to know the actual printer model number, rather
>> than simply "Datamax label machine".
>>
>> What printer language does the manufacturer say it supports?
>
> AFAIK, Datamax speaks Datamax! ;-)
>
>
> Jim
> =============================================================
>
> That's right.  Sorry for the confusion in my original post.  The "machine" 
> is a
> Datamax Allegro and also a newer Datamax M-4206.  Both have 25-pin serial 
> ports
> on the back.  Both work perfectly, beautifully, from within Windows with 
> the
> BarTender software, printed direct from COM1 on the PC.
>
> Doug Luurs emailed me and called me with an example of creating a label to 
> a
> Datamax from within filePro.  It is tricky to setup, but will work once 
> set up.
> (Thanks!)
>
> The thing my Admin dept wants to do is simply have me write a simple 
> "export"
> process to an ASCII file from filePro, then FTP it to Windows and have the 
> PC
> and BarTender software generate the labels that way.  It would be much 
> quicker
> to easier to manage, than trying to create Datamax PCL codes and force
> filePro/SCO Unix to print to a serial printer/Datamax label printer. 
> Right?
>
> Thanks for all the replies and help me regain my sanity! :)

I have one customer using bartender to generate labels from an ascii export 
I export from filepro.

I haven't touched it in a long time and don't have remote access to either 
his unix box or his pc, but I can at least say it's a workable scheme.
He does it several times a day.

He's nearby physically so I could stop by and fix his router so my remote 
access is back up and snag a copy of the batch files or whatever is special 
on the pc if you are in danger of getting stuck.
Just wanted to chime in that it's definitely a reasonable scheme so go ahead 
and do it.

I think all I'm doing is exporting a file by the same name every time, in 
csv format with the fields I needed in whatever order I wanted (ie, the 
order they happen to exist in the filepro file)
And in bartender I created a label and bartender lets you specify "field 1 
goes here in plain text, field 2 goes here in 3of9, ..."  in the label 
designer.
Then I think I might have made a .bat file and a desktop shortcut icon for 
it that runs bartender with command line options to print that particular 
label. I'm not so sure on that point.
I think I do have a batch for him, but I think it might be mostly for doing 
things you aren't concerned with, like downloading an edi file from some 
other entity, runing a filepro process on it to import it and generate the 
csv for bartender and overwrite the old copies of the same files, and maybe 
then run bartender.

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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