How to link data boxes, to individual publisher page text boxes??

[Brante]

Hi, I have been using Microsoft Office for many years, though I never tried doing anything very technical with the programs. I am in the pure fruit juice industry, and I have been starting to become quite active in it. One of the labeling requirements which I now need to have, is an individual batch number on each label. Since I print all my own labels using Microsoft Pub. I was hoping that I could create a Pub. page with a list of juice type text (data entry) boxes, which would auto link to text boxes on the label pages, and save me having to copy and paste the same batch number over and over every time I do a new bottling session. Any advice in regards to this would be greatly appreciated! Thank you

 

[Makonz]

Hi Brante

I have set up a large number of labels in Publisher for the manufacturing operation that I oversee. I also have a set of labels for lot numbering some of the raw materials that come into the plant and these number sequences have to be changed continually so I have set up a number of mechanisms to do this - most are relatively simple and easy to replicate.

Firstly it would be good to know if the text data that you refer to is set per fruit juice type - for example, is the text for orange juice ( if you produce that variety ) always the same list or does it vary depending on an analysis report based on that batch ? If it is always the same, I would set up an individual label page for that product and save it with a descriptive title that allows easy retrieval such as " Orange Juice - 250 ml - PN 61207 - 14 Label" For the batch number you would just set a text box in the label area on the page once when you create the page, that you change each batch with the Find and Replace function. ( Edit > Replace or Control + H ) If the batch number in each box is 123456 then type that number in the "Find what" field and the next batch number, say 123457 in the "Replace with" field. Click "Find Next" then "Replace" to replace that one instance or "Replace All" to replace all occurrences in one hit. ( With the "Replace All" you do have to be careful that there are no instances of that sequence anywhere in the publication that you don't want to replace )

If the data is variable from batch to batch you can use the same basic process to paste in a whole text group albeit this is a bit ungainly. In this case you would most probably have one word in each text cell to find such as "data" which you replace with your batch specific text. You most probably in this case would not save the result. One other option is to save the basic text as a Content Library item which I describe how to do in this answer to another question in this forum,

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1627901

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I hope that one of these suggestions helps and I am happy to assist further if you have additional questions.

Regards

Makonz

 

[Makonz]

Hi Brante

Not too sure if your question was answered to your satisfaction or not ... ? Part of the challenge of answering a question like this is knowing exactly the operation so feel free to come back if you still have a problem or none of the suggestions work for your situation. Publisher is not specifically a label printing program but I have used it with very good success for the last 7 years.

Regards

Makonz