Bartender & Create!Form- Label Printing

Hi everyone, I have another question.

I understand the concept behind designing a Label using Bartender, printing the label to a file, then copying the resulting codes into Create!Form.

But how do you paste the codes into Create!Form? Is it a case of inserting Variable Text fields and pasting the code into there? Or is it simpler than that?

Apologies if this seema a silly question!

Thanks.

There are two ways to use Bartender with Create!form

1) Design label in Bartender
- Use Seagull Driver for Win printer
- Use generic names for variables on label
- Print label to file, capture output
- Start a new project using Create!form Transform
- In the Transform Project, create 1 large section, like a header section, get rid of the rest
- In the one large section, create a text object, paste the output from the Bartender label
- Everywhere you see the variable names from the label, use the variable insert tool to insert variables from either your E1 PDF file, or a mapped data item if using ASCII text
as the input file
- After all of this is done, the E1 or mapped variables are in the code for the Bartender Label
- Create a Director project to call the transform project and output the job to the Bartender printer (which is not setup as a Create!form printer)
- The Director project also has the required Bartender Header line in the JTT file

2) Design label in Bartender
- Use Seagull Driver for Win printer
- Start a new project using Create!form Transform
- In the Transform Project, you can use a header section if needed, can also use detail sections for multiple records, multiple labels
- Each section should be height of 1
- Simply use either variables or a text object with multiple variables within it (variable insert tool) and separate each variable with a comma
- This is much like a CSV file, each record is a label
- Do a print preview, save the output file
- In Bartender label, use the Database Connection Setup option to bring in the data file and assign each variable (database field) to a variable in the Bartender Label
(I have a doc that outlines exactly how to do this, send me an email if you'd like it, its pretty easy)
- Create a Director project to call the transform project and output the job to a Directory where Bartender Commander will pick it up.
- Create a Task in Bartender Commander to pick up the file in the directory & output it to the printer (specified in Output)
- The Director project also has the required Bartender Header line in the JTT file

The 2nd way described is much easier and more robust as it utilizes Bartender Commander and offers more functionality in the Bartender Designer.

Mark

Wow, that's great, thanks Mark!

I'll give it a try.

So, I've designed a label in Bartender, copied the resulting file to Create!Form and mapped the variables.

But now I come to this bit:-

- Create a Director project to call the transform project and output the job to the Bartender printer (which is not setup as a Create!form printer)
- The Director project also has the required Bartender Header line in the JTT file

I'm assuming we'll have to install Bartender on our Create!Form server? Otherwise there's no way for Create!Form to route the print through Bartender.

I'm using Create!Form version 3.2.11, unfortunately we don't have Transform installed. So am I still able to create a 'Director Project'? I'm not clear on what a Director Project is.

Other than that I'm nearly there thanks to your help!

Tim,

When you say you 'mapped the variables', what Create!form application did you use to do this?
- This has to be done in a Create!form Transform 6.x Project not in the Create!form design tool.
(if done in the 3.2 design tool, it will not work).

Create!form Transform and Create!form Director are on the Create!form 6.x CD

Create!form 6.x offers a number of Modules:
- Create!form Server 6.x is the document distribution engine which replaces Create!stream Server and routes the job to a number of functions.
- Create!form Transform 6.x is a transform tool that allows text based output (PDF to Text, PDF to CSV, Extraction of PDF variables to text output, etc)
- Create!form Director 6.x is a project much like a script that contains routing instructions on how to process the job (Email, Fax, Archive, Output to a FTP or HTTP site as well as outputting to the Label printer)

If you are running Create!form Server 3.2, you may already be licensed to install and use Create!form 6.x (most clients are).

If you dont have the CD or are not licensed, you would have to use Create!stream Server and Builder

To use Create!stream builder, you would have to follow the 2nd procedure I outlined.
- Create a stream builder script to extract data items out to a CSV file
- Import file into Bartender label via Database Connection Setup
- Install Bartender and Commander on eform server
- Activate all needed Bartender licenses
- Create a task in Commander, etc.

If your wanting to use the Procedure 1 that I explained (which MUST use a Transform project) then the job is actually not going through Bartender at all & it doesn't have to be installed:
- Printing the Bartender Label to the Label printer & capturing the output is all thats needed.
- This code is what actually prints the label on the label printer when it passes through the Seagull Driver to the label printer.
- The job doesn't actually go through Bartender.

All in all, Cform 6.x is the way to go, using Transform & a Director project.
- This has been the standard for some time.

Mark