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print barcode address label by giving starting number


milind.vaze

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Hello:

We have to daily print multiple files of address labels with barcodes. Each A4 sheet has 21 labels. Data is taken from separate excel files. The barcode required is 3 of 9 HR. Before the generating the print file will it be possible to have kind of a a pop-up window wherein for each file we can manually enter the starting number for the barcode series?

With regards.

Milind Vaze.

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The short answer is: No, there isn't any way to pop up a window to enter values when composing in FP Creator (in Acrobat), other than the record range and other info in the Composition Settings dialog.

 

The usual way to accomplish something like this is to put whatever data you want to have entered in the pop up into a secondary data file (XDF) instead.

 

You mention that "Data is taken from separate excel files." That sounds like you're already using XDFs, and that you already know how to deal with them. So all you need to do is add another XDF with one record and have a rule read that and apply the data however you want. Then all you have to do before each composition is update that XDF file with whatever data you're wanting to enter into a pop-up window.

 

The longer answer:

 

When you say, "Before the generating the print file," you mean, "right before the composition is done."

 

Keep in mind that FusionPro compositions do not always occur in the interactive context of the Acrobat plug-in where you're designing the template. Most compositions occur in an automated context, such as jobs submitted to FusionPro VDP Producer or Server, including to other systems utilizing FP Server, usually a web application such as MarcomCentral DM/Portal or EFI Digital StoreFront. Sometimes these apps have their own user entry forms for typing in data before a composition is run, but often the jobs are run in a truly automated way, such as on a timer or triggered by an external event, so there's no direct user interaction at all. Thus, the very concept that a user is there to type in data into a window when a composition starts is an assumption that's not always true.

 

Therefore, at a basic level, we don't know whether a template will be composed in a manual/interactive way versus in an automated way, so we don't have any functionality that assumes one way or the other.

 

Users who want other ways to collect data for a FusionPro composition typically do that in their own custom application which utilizes FP Server.

 

It sounds to me like your job could benefit from that kind of Server workflow, where you have a custom application with a form of some kind that allows the user to enter a number, then when that form is filled out and the Submit button is clicked, the application triggers an event and the composition is started automatically via a call to the FusionPro Server API. You could also probably further automate such a system so that jobs get kicked off every day automatically, and the starting number for the barcodes is read from a file or database that remembers what was run previously.

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