This chapter is an introduction to templates and wizards. It describes Loftware’s pre-designed label templates used to create production printing labels in less time and with less potential errors. If you are like most users, you routinely produce customized labels for production printing. This means that you are creating your own unique labels with bar code, text, lines, boxes and graphics. This chapter also contains information on creating custom templates using methods discussed in the previous chapters on design.
Loftware has many templates to choose from, including a template for the 1724-A label for General Motors Suppliers, as well as a wizard that creates the complex PDF-417 bar code that accompanies this label. This chapter explains how to customize your labels, how to open a template, and how to use some of Loftware’s Wizards, specifically the UCC Bar Code, the General Motors (GM), the UCC Code 128, and the UPN Healthcare Bar Code Wizards. The wizards help you to create a custom formula that becomes a part of the bar code, helping you to comply with labeling standards the world over, as well as saving you time and effort. Using a template and a wizard together makes production label printing a far easier task than it has ever been.
Templates
In previous chapters, we have learned to use many of Loftware Label Manager’s tools and techniques. In this and the next two chapters, “Data Sources” and “On-Demand Printing,” we explore these topics more thoroughly.
The default directory for
Templates created during a new installation is:
Program Files\Loftware
Labeling\TEMPLATE\GENERAL.
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What is a Template? A label template is a “master” copy for labels of a certain type. A template can include the boilerplate fields you want to be displayed in each label of that type. You can select from the templates provided with Loftware Label Manager, or design your own. |
Creating a New Label based on a Template
Refer to “Using an Industry-Specific Label Template” in Chapter 3 for information on using the New Media Wizard to create a new label based on an industry-specific template.
When you select a template from the Label Template Selection dialog of the New Media Wizard, a thumbnail preview of the label template and a description are shown.
Figure 7-A: New Label Wizard dialog box displaying a thumbnail preview of UPS Template
If you select the normal (default) template, Loftware Label Manager displays the default label size (4x6); otherwise, the size stored in the template is used. With other templates, such as the Kmart or JCPenney template, you need to adjust the format and field data sources to fit your particular application.
Note: Not finding the Template you are looking for? Be sure that the correct path to the Templates has been chosen by clicking on Options | File Locations in Design View, and you are looking at “Templates.”
Creating Your Own Template
The compliance labels that ship with the Loftware Label Manager system are saved in the label designer as templates, with a .lwt extension. To make your own template, you may do one of two things:
1. Open a template in Loftware Label Design Mode.
2. Select File | Save As.
3. Save the label with a .lwt extension in the \Template folder.
4. Change the label to fit the requirements desired, save the label again, but this time with an .lwl extension.
or
5. Design a new label in Loftware Design Mode. (See the chapter on “Creating a Label” if you need information.)
6. Save the label, choosing the template option in the Save File As Type combo box.
7. Change the label as needed in Design Mode.
Note: You may have to change the extension of the label from lwl to lwt manually.
The template is available as a useful starting point the next time the File | New is selected; however, it is necessary to save the template as a label, using the .lwl extension