Hi, I hope someone can take a serious look at Libre Office' label printing capabilities, because this "feature" has been the cause of major frustrations for years, because they never print out right, which heart aches aside is costing me lots of wasted label sheets. On another label-printing-adventure, I discovered the following today.... Premises: I live in EU where standard paper size is A4 and I use 3x7 printing label sheets coming from a Dutch department store HEMA. Upon [File] - [New] - [Label], I design a new label type according to pack I just bought. All sizes are accurately measured and entered, and I save the label design under a new name, so I can use it later. QUESTION: How can I transfer this label design to another LO-installation? Then I create a full sheet of labels based upon this new design and run a testprint on my printer to check if all measurements are correct. Some adjustments are necessary, but I also notice that a huge bottom-margin is applied, which leads to cut-off labels on the bottom row. Checking the Page-settings, I notice that the page size is "Custom" with some sizes that are close to ye ole "Letter" format. I adjust the page size of the document to A4. After that the bottom row is printed in full. QUESTION: How does LO calculate (or assume) the paper size for printing labels? Then I wanted to print 8 full sheets of that same label. So I do [File] - [ Print] and adjust the number of pages to 8 and hit the [Print] button. Lo and behold, the printer starts printing, but the first sheet is pushed through the printer, pulled back again into the double-side-page-turner and the full sheet of labels is printed on the back side of the sheet. QUESTION: ..... actually speechless ..... I can only hope that these experiences can be reproduced. I am certain that Hardware, OS or versions of OOo/LO don't play a role here. I've had such experiences for a number of years, with several PC's, various versions of Windows and different versions of OOo/LO. Kind regards, Stephan
Hi Stephan, Thanks for your courage to file these annoyancies :-) Let me start saying that I can work with the labels... But to be honest: it is troublesome indeed, especially since there is some not easy to see underlying meganism. Your report is quite generic and this makes it difficult to pick up issues one by one. Would you mind thinking/discussing a bit about that? Maybe on a list, either an international or a Dutch one? I am sure there will be more people (apart from you & me) interested to think about it. Really would appreciate that. And maybe we will be able to find some relatively easy steps for initial improvement! Thanks, Cor
(In reply to comment #1) > Hi Stephan, > > Thanks for your courage to file these annoyancies :-) > > Let me start saying that I can work with the labels... > But to be honest: it is troublesome indeed, especially since there is some not > easy to see underlying meganism. > > Your report is quite generic and this makes it difficult to pick up issues one > by one. > Would you mind thinking/discussing a bit about that? Maybe on a list, either an > international or a Dutch one? I am sure there will be more people (apart from > you & me) interested to think about it. > Really would appreciate that. And maybe we will be able to find some relatively > easy steps for initial improvement! > Thanks, > Cor Tell me where Cor, and I'll be happy to join in a discussion. Vertel maar waar en ik discussieer graag mee. Stephan
.
> (In reply to comment #1) > Tell me where Cor, and I'll be happy to join in a discussion. > Vertel maar waar en ik discussieer graag mee. You can choose international or Dutch users list. International is more noise, so maybe Dutch will do best? On this page http://nl.libreoffice.org/ondersteuning/ you see how to subscribe. Does that help? Cor
[This is an automated message.] This bug was filed before the changes to Bugzilla on 2011-10-16. Thus it started right out as NEW without ever being explicitly confirmed. The bug is changed to state NEEDINFO for this reason. To move this bug from NEEDINFO back to NEW please check if the bug still persists with the 3.5.0 beta1 or beta2 prereleases. Details on how to test the 3.5.0 beta1 can be found at: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/QA/BugHunting_Session_3.5.0.-1 more detail on this bulk operation: http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/RFC-Operation-Spamzilla-tp3607474p3607474.html
I checked again with LOdev 3.5b2, clean install parallel to existing 3.4.3. I included more detailed information that should allow easy reproduction of the problems. File - New - Label - Size I created a new Label definition for my Hema 525 - 65x38mm A4 21-label sheet. Upon searching the hard drive, I discovered that custom label definitions are stored in UserDir\AppData\Roaming\...\user\registrymodifications.xcu. So, that's one of my earlier questions answered. It'd appear that there is no simple way to migrate/port custom label definitions to another LO installation, or to share such definitions among multiple LO installations. File - New - Label - Options Next, I created a full page of labels (synced). New document. I filled the label and synced the address across the sheet. The (calculated) dimensions of the thus created page are: User-defined, 21.06cm, 29.92cm. In reality the sheet is A4 size, which could lead to conflicts such as page overflow and/or possible automatic resizing by the printer. This full sheet printed correctly, no negative side effects wrt the incorrect sheet dimensions. Nevertheless I propose that an extra parameter is added to the Label Size dialogue: Sheet size. Any excess width or height calculated by LO should be cut off in order to remove the potential paper size conflict. Mailmerge address-database test File - New - Label - New Document - Synced Selected make: (my) Hema 525 F4 to open database-connection. Drag several Field names into first label, thus creating the address. Add Field "Database, Next record". Sync labels. In the database pane, scroll down, up and down all database records, otherwise not all records will be caught. Select all records. Button: Merge to standard letter. Step through the process with only one little filter to select the Xmas cards. Step through until final step "Print merged document". Printing without checking the printer settings, leads to default printer settings, in my case double sided printing and last page first. As a result label sheets are first turned over and the labels are printed on the wrong side. (!@#$% I forget that every time) If I do check the printer settings and disable double sided printing, then oddly enough, additional blank pages are inserted between the label sheets, as if extra page-feeds have been produced. Could it be that this is in fact the page size conflict that I was referring to above? File - Printer settings If LO is able to negotiate settings with the printer, then it should try and have double-sided printing disabled. This would prevent undesired results where label sheets are first turned over and then printed on the wrong side.
as per: https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=donkers+label+bug&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 this is likely a duplicate of bug 36874. Please check and change the state of this bug to RESOLVED/DUPLICATE, if that is indeed the case.
Thanks for the input, Björn. This report touches upon a number of issues associated with label printing. And while, indeed, one part could be seen as a duplicate of bug 36874 that appears to have been resolved, it would not do to declare this report as a whole completely resolved. There are stil remaining issues and improvement suggestions. For this reason, I'd propose to leave this one OPEN, so as to encourage further investigation and hopefully a more complete resolution. Having said that, I fully appreciate that (my) issues with label printing are not widely acknowledged and possibly low-priority. Please feel free to adjust the status accordingly yourself, if you think there's little chance in the short-mid term.
(In reply to comment #8) > while, indeed, one part could be seen as a duplicate of bug 36874 that appears > to have been resolved, it would not do to declare this report as a whole > completely resolved. There are stil remaining issues and improvement > suggestions. > For this reason, I'd propose to leave this one OPEN, so as to encourage further > investigation and hopefully a more complete resolution. > Having said that, I fully appreciate that (my) issues with label printing are > not widely acknowledged and possibly low-priority. Please feel free to adjust > the status accordingly yourself, if you think there's little chance in the > short-mid term. I think that the remaining annoyances will be addressed with bug 44516. It would help if you could send a document with HEMA label 525 as well as the label definition you created as an attachment to this bug.
It is indeed a problem with rounding off: The traditional measure in printing is twip (twentieth of a Postscript point), the label dimensions are in 0.01mm. The calculated width of 3 HEMA labels is 11907 twips, A4 is 11906 twips... I will try to address this whilst working on bug 44516.
(In reply to comment #10) > It is indeed a problem with rounding off: > The traditional measure in printing is twip (twentieth of a Postscript point), > the label dimensions are in 0.01mm. > The calculated width of 3 HEMA labels is 11907 twips, A4 is 11906 twips... > > I will try to address this whilst working on bug 44516. My previous comment should be disregarded; it belongs to another bug. Nevertheless, I will try to address the annoyances whilst working on bug 44516.
Created attachment 55709 [details] full sheet of dummy labels full sheet of dummy labels, created from described label sheet definition. I hope the definition is also in the file. File and label sheet definition were created with LODev 3.5 beta 2.
> I think that the remaining annoyances will be addressed with bug > 44516. It would help if you could send a document with HEMA label 525 > as well as the label definition you created as an attachment to this bug. See attached file including a full sheet of dummy labels. I hope the label sheet definition is in it as well. thanks, Stephan
Created attachment 55710 [details] Label-example.odt
(In reply to comment #14) > Created attachment 55710 [details] > Label-example.odt The attached documents appear to be identical and the frame size (label size) differ from what you said in comment 6. The attached documents have labels 60x36mm with a H/V pitch of 66.3/38.2mm, whereas you said that HEMA 525 labels are 65x38mm. Could you attach (the relevant part of) your registrymodifications.xcu, so that I can compare and test? In your comment 6 you have 4 items: - I know of no way to port local label definitions, other than putting them in a writer template. -This is addressed by bug 44516. The wrong page size is caused by incomplete label defintions (no right/bottom margin is defined) and by rounding/calculation abberations during the creation of the document. As long as the patches have not yet been submitted and released, you can set the correct page size with Layout - Page. -The blank pages may well be caused by the incorrect page height, there is 2mm still to be printed after each 7 rows. -As far as I know, many printer settings are printer specific and cannot be stored in the document when the printer is not known. I you want to have this feature looked into further, I suggest you enter a separate bug for this item only (as requested enhancement).
I have made a patch for bug44516 and tested it with HEMA 525 labels (dimensions taken from internet). The created document was fine, it had the same label dimensions and locations as defined as the paper size was A4. I have set the status of this bug to resolved, even if not 100% of your various annoyances have been solved 100%. I suggest you submit a new bug should you wish that one of your annoyances still ought to be addressed. Also I ask you to enter one problem per bug (e.g. 2 problems: enter 2 separate bugs).
Thanks a lot, Winfried Much appreciated
yesterday I had a similar problem. I have labels from APPLI type 10636. 2 columns of 7 rows on 1 A4 page each labels is 105 mm wide and 40mm high. On the top and the bottom of the page there's white border of about 10mm I managed to created labels for this before, but yesterday I just wouldn't work. LibreOffice 3.5 First of all the the page size is set 'user' instead of A4. It is not possible to set this before you click the 'new document' button. Instead of having 2 labels side by side. I got all my labels in 1 row on 2 different pages. It seems the labels in the right columns wouldn't fit on the page and were placed in the left column instead. There was some sort of invisible 5mm border on the right side of the page that I'm not allowed to use. After some fiddling with the page size and the margins and the size of the labels I finally managed to get a page with 2 column of labels. But there certainly is something wrong with that label generator!!!
(In reply to comment #18) Tom, the problem you describe is present in 3.5, has been solved and will be in version 3.6 (August 2012). There is a workaround : Define your labels (hor.distance=width=10.5cm, height=40mm, columns=2, rows=7) and create the document. Go to Format -Page, tab Page, set the right margin to 0.00cm and then set the format to A4. That should do the trick. (if not reduce the width with 0.01 or 0.02cm, whilst keeping the hor.distance at 10.5cm. I hope this is of any help to you :)