Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[Monsie]

Hi all,

Sometimes the little things matter when using a distro... especially when it involves completing a simple task that helps one's productivity such as making address labels in bulk. In Debian, I use Glabels for this task, but given that it is a Gnome app, it will not run in Wary Puppy as there are too many missing dependencies....

So, I got to thinking about this and I wondered about using a spreadsheet as a template... whether it would work or not. After spending a couple of evenings on this, I found a way to do this in Gnumeric while using the Avery Mailing Labels #08160 These mailing labels come in Letter Sized sheets with 30 labels per sheet.

In a nutshell, the task involves creating a spreadsheet layout that matches the Mailing Labels Sheet. To do this, one must resize the necessary rows and columns to match the size of each label and take into account the spacing between the labels. To accomplish this, one must convert the dimensions of each row and column from inches or centimeters to pixels.

Briefly here is what I did:

--determined that my screen display is set at 84 dpi
--set the screen dpi in Gnumeric to the same value --> Preferences
--converted the column widths and row heights from inches to pixels
--adjusted the font size for the address labels in Gnumeric
--set the margins for printing in Page Setup in Gnumeric
--frequently checked the Print Preview and tweaked the values for each row, column and margin in the set up
-- made four or five test prints until I was satisfied with the result
--I placed the finished spreadsheet here: --> /usr/share/gnumeric/1.10.16/templates

As proof of concept, I am attaching my template as a working example. The template can be re-worked by resizing the cells, rows, and columns in it to match the dpi setting of one's monitor, as well as the particular Mailing Label Sheet. Unfortunately, there is no "template that fits all" and it might be just as easy to start from scratch...

Lastly, I want to say that I am not a spreadsheet wizard. There may be some further tweaks or improvements that can be done, and I will welcome helpful advice, input etc. My thoughts are that this project is a bit tedious, but quite do-able, However, if anyone wants more details, more information how to do this, then I will consider writing another post in depth.

Cheers,
Monsie

[musher0]

Hi, Monsie.

Mailing labels can indeed be very handy. Thanks.

muhser0

[Monsie]

Thanks, Musher0

and of course you are welcome...

I am hoping to hear from others who have tried my method to find out if it works for them given that their display is likely running at a different resolution overall.

I have also looked at the Avery website and found that one can also use their products with a Linux distro to create fancy address labels while on-line. To do this, one must have an account with Avery, and be running Adobe Flash on their website.

While it is great to have this option, personally, I like to be able to do things on my desktop independently --first and foremost.

Monsie

[musher0]

I just gave your idea a little push on the French forum! http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=714197&sort=lastpost#714197 (That's our resources for micro-business thread.)

[8-bit]

Yet another way is to scan in a copy of of an existing mailing labels sheet and use it to print additional mailing labels.
I have did this and it works well.

[Monsie]

[Monsie]

[8-bit]

Using a mailing label program on another OS, I printed a page of labels that had the fields filled in.
I then scanned that sheet of labels in and used it to print more using a word processing program and setting top, bottom, left, right, header, and footer margins appropriately.
I would then print out to a blank page, not mailing label page and compare that for fine tuning.
I also did this with pin feed single roll mailing labels.

[Monsie]

[Monsie]

Hi all,

Here's an update:

After doing some more research regarding templates, I found another solution for printing address labels... It turns out there is a website dedicated to creating and printing labels of all sorts: http://www.worldlabel.com/Pages/template_1.htm

I managed to find an OpenOffice template for the Avery Mailing Labels sheet #08160 and after downloading it, I discovered that it will indeed open in abiword. So, I created a set of address labels, ran a test print and found the result was fine.

Once again, this was a very useful solution for me, because given my old Pentium lll system, I don't have sufficient ram to run OpenOffice 3x where I could otherwise complete this task.

I suspect this will prove to be a useful solution for some other Puppy Linux users also...

Cheers,
Monsie

[tallboy]

Thank you very much, Monsie!
I downloaded the complete European/Asian label package for A4, and got all US labels thrown in too! Excellent!

[RSH]

[Monsie]

RSH,

I stand corrected... I should edit my post to state that I have never been able to run glabels in Wary Puppy... but I am not the only one who has had difficulty with getting glabels to work with Puppy: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=70454&search_id=124180148&sid=ca95a78ff23bf5ec7d2566de9715f99a

While it has been packaged for a few versions of Puppy, note that some users have had issues with how well this application works: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=63387&search_id=124180148&sid=ca95a78ff23bf5ec7d2566de9715f99a

Are you interested in explaining how you managed to package and install glabels for Lazy Puppy, and, do you plan on sharing this application with the Community?

I am fairly sure there are some users who would be willing to test this application to see if it installs in their breed of Puppy and to find out whether it works better now...

Monsie

[RSH]

Hi.

[Monsie]

Hi RSH,

Thanks for sharing... So I loaded your sfs package and did some testing. Unfortunately, it will not run in Wary Puppy because Wary is assembled with glibc 2.10 whereas your version of glabels requires glibc 2.11 or greater.