labels versus report for output

[Nifrabar]

Hi!

To be honoust I always used reports to print labels.
Being a bit lazy I never tried labels.
My Q:
Why should I use labels i.s.o. reports?

TIA
-Bart

 

[Koen Piller]

Bart,

what makes you tired to use labels i/o reports?

Groet,

Jockey(2)

 

[JRB-Bldr]

Where Report Forms generally utilize a single 'generic' 8 1/2 * 11 page layout (although that can be changed), Label Forms can utilize a variety of pre-formatted label layouts from some of the label manufacturers such as Avery to print multiple times on a single label sheet.

Meaning, with Label Forms, lay it out once for One Label and get multiple labels printed on the same label page based on the record count.

Does that make any sense?

Good Luck,
JRB-Bldr

 

[Mike Lewis]

Hi Bart,

Labels and reports are really the same thing. The design tools are very similar, and you use almost the same code to print them. So, if you already know how to work with reports, you already know to work with labels.

The big advantage of labels is that it is easy to print several of them across the width of the page. You typically get labels 3-up or 4-up on the sheet (three or four labels side by side). The label designer makes it easy to print them in that way.

I would say that if you need to print labels in that way, then you should use the label tools rather than the report tools.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips, training, consultancy

 

[Nifrabar]

Hi to all!

Is my conclusion correct that the advantage of using labels is that VFP has predefined lots of standard labels?

My way of using reports also enables printing multiple columns across.

-Bart

 

[Mike Lewis]

Is my conclusion correct that the advantage of using labels is that VFP has predefined lots of standard labels?

That's partly correct. A bigger advantage is that, once you have decided the size of the label, you can do the design work in an area of that size. You don't have to think about how many labels you can fit on an A4 page.

For example, I use a label that is 63.5 x 43.4 mm, 3-up, on an A4 sheet. Once I've told the label designer that is the size I require, it gives me a design surface of exactly that area. I can focus on creating a single label, and leave it to the software to figure out how many labels to fit on the sheet.

It's one of those things that's difficult to explain, but becomes immediately obvious once you start doing it.

Mike



__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips, training, consultancy

 

[Olaf Doschke]

Well Mike, you can also set column number in FRXes, and set spacing and margins and the design canvas also shrinks to one label. Therefore I can think of no difference at all, besides the predefined layouts you may choose from.

Bye, Olaf.

 

[Nifrabar]

Thanks all for your replies.
I will overthink to design a hack of the report at runtime
Than I can create on the fly the desired labelsize.
I once traced the labelbuilder source-code so that might be possible.

-Bart