Plants > Plant Labels

Printing Plant labels from Ideas Genie

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ideasguy:
As you know, (I hope!) Ideas Genie has a feature to allow you to print labels.
You can get to it in GA004.

I kicked the ball into play by providing ONE label design, Avery 2 across by 7 down= 14 labels per sheet.
If you go to the feature, you'll find that I have left loads of space around the Print button to accomodate other label styles.

Surprisingly, nobody has asked for alternatives, until now.
Ive exchanged a few emails with Mikesummers (our fellow IGC member) and Mike has asked me to provide an alternative.

I'll allow Mike to reply to this posting, and tell us his specification, and the progress made to date.

When we are at it, anybody else interested in this? Please join in... its YOUR forum, so have your say !!!

mikesanders:
I have been in touch with George on this one - I think there is only one solution for the gardener who wants the occasional, well-presented label.  This is to permit a print-out from IG with a colour photograph, and several fields for text.  The text fields could be nominated by the User - say:  Latin name, common name, flowering season, colour and height.  This data could be downloaded to a standard (say) Avery label - I have researched those Avery labels which correlate with the "square T-shaped" white plastic plant labels commercially available, and have come up with two sizes which would work with the four main sizes of commercially available plant label.

I have suggested using the self-adhesive Avery labels, but have found that the adhesion is not strong enough, without some supplement such as Copydex. 

The sheets of labels can then easily be laminated - buy your own for about £100 to £150 - or use a local Print Shop.  The lamination is only on one side, and the laminated label can then be peeled from the Avery labels' backing sheet.

Any other ideas????

mikesanders:
One important aspect of plant labels is the size that you woud find of most use.  I understand that IG will have the facility to print a label with a colour photograph.  These will need to be attached to the commercially available square/T white plastic plant labels. (see my previous posting)  The commercially available plant labels come in several sizes, but the following are readily available:
55mm by 35mm
50mm by 80mm
60mm by 100mm

I hope that IG will have the facility to select print labels commensurate with these plant label sizes - is there any comment out there on preferred sizes of plant labels.

Do you have any particular way of labelling plants attractively which you have found works well - indoors, in the greenhouse or outdoors?

Mike Sanders

ideasguy:
I'l be programming this very soon, so any input would be much appreciated from our members.


--- Quote from: mikesanders on January 17, 2006, 09:41:35 PM ---Do you have any particular way of labelling plants attractively which you have found works well - indoors, in the greenhouse or outdoors?
--- End quote ---

With seed propagating and tray/pot labelling time approaching, any member experience on anything that works would be very much appreciated!

ideasguy:
This was a bit trickier than I thought, but... its done!

There were just too many options to put it on the program GA004, so I developed a brand new program GA048, and it will be available immediately in Ideas Genie Pro and Bonsai Genie.
It will be added to Ideas Genie and Flower Genie later.

There are 3 options, for any one of a range of labels:
a) Print data
b) Print a photo
c) Print data + photo

Its very flexible. Heres the steps

Screen 1
Select a label (from a pop-up)
Select Option a), b) or c) above.
Click Continue

Screen 2
A Visual presentation of the page of labels
e.g. if the label selected is 7 (rows) x 3 (columns) you will see 7 rows and 3 columns of rectangles to represent the page of labels.
There is a Gardener pop-up and a Garden Area pop-up.
You select a list of plants by operating the pop-ups.

To put a plant on a label:
1. Click a plant in the list.
2. Click a label on the label list of plants. The label is filled

To remove a plant from a label:
Right click the label

Keep clicking labels for multiples of the same plant, OR
select a NEW plant (change pop-up settings if you wish) and start clicking again.

If you only need one label, you can single a plant and click once.
You can click any position on the page of labels.
This allows you to print one (or more) label now, peel off the label, go back later and print more labels on the same sheet.

Click Edit

Screen 3
You edit the data for the labels.
The amount of data you can squeeze onto a small label is much less that that you can save on a large label. Hence, the program offers you the facility to edit.
The program also allows you to SAVE the editing.
Thus, next time you select that label and the same plant, the label data (your good work) appears.

The Plant name is automatically supplied.
You can edit this
e.g. Acer palmatum var. dissectum 'Tamukeyama' will appear first time you go to print a label for that plant. A bit big for a label.
You can edit it to Acer p. diss. 'Tamukeyama' and save that name for that label.


The plant data:
is automatically generated from the flowering time, dimensions etc in your database
Again you can edit this to suit the label, and save your work.

How do you know if it everything fits the label?
You do a Print Preview. Keep editing until it looks right.

The Photo (if you've picked that option)
You can review and select any photo from your collection for use on the label.
e.g. You could prepare a photo (in advance) to suit the label and select that.
You don?t have to size your photo. The program will reduce the image proportionally to fit the label.

Finally? print your page of labels

Click Done.
You will be offered the option to save the page of labels.
If you do that, you can quickly reprint that page again, or if you want to add another plant to the page of labels.
Next time you start GA048, all saved label pages will be displayed in a list in Screen 1.
Double click to reprint, go through the process again for new labels.

In the database design, Ive provided for (but not programmed yet):
* Printing both sides of a page.
Would allow you to print data on one side, photo on the other.
To do this, the software has to "flip" the label. More computer programming gymnastics!

* Print Specimen name. Save the label editing for Plant+Specimen. Thus, you could save different text for each specimen of a plant.

Questions and Comments please!

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