Labels and Label Design

Information about creating and using label formats which can be used on specialised label printers or general printers as well

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Signs and Shelf Labels technical commands

What's Available?

The following types of labels are available

Item Labels. A label that can be placed on each individual product
Shelf Labels. A label that goes on the display cabinet indicating the price. Sometimes called shelf talkers or facing labels.
Signs. General large sized prints.

Unfortunately the combination of what type of printer can be used, where and how varies. Not all devices can easily be used from all applications.

Printer	PosGreen on Windows	Web Browser
Windows Print Queue	Yes	Some
Specialised Label Printer	Yes	Some

The reason for the complexity of solutions is due to the following technical reasons

A web browser generally will prompt before allowing printing, or does not understand the specialised protocols needed to print labels
If you are selling via an external web page, such as https://fieldpine.com then that page cannot access internal local network resources, unless the resource is using HTTPS, which is difficult to enable without opening firewalls to the internet.
There are also restrictions around accessing LAN addresses from internet web pages.
If you are using Fieldpine Store Servers, then those servers can access some printers depending on network configuration. And the Store Server also requires an SSL certificate

The above often have workarounds or more details than included above.

End User Operation

Definitions using "Print Simple"

Print Simple is intended as a realitively easy label definition format that can progressively get more complex as experience and requirements grow. For more information see Labels using Print Simple

Every line entererd in a print simple definition is printed to the label, except for the following exceptions
If the line starts with a greater than sign ( > ) in which case the line alters the behaviour of lines that follow from it. See the following table for commands.
If the line starts with a less than sign ( < ) the remainder of the line undergoes symbol translation and is then treated as a normal text to be printed

Greater Than Commands

Keyword	Description	Examples
size	Sets the size of the label this format is designed for	>size 76,25.2
color F (or colour)	Sets the text color to F	>color red
fontsize X	Sets the size of the font to use. The value X consists of a number followed by a size indicator; which can be one of mm - for millimetres pt - for points cm - for centimetres in - for inches	>fontsize 12.5mm >fontsize 4.2cm
top N	Sets the top of the next drawing box to N. This permits you to absolutely position text on the label. The default operation is that the printing engine automatically moves the "top" down the label as text is rendered. The physical top/left of a label is 0 (zero)	>top 23mm
cropmarks	Place small lines and marks outside the label boundary as a guide to cutting. Cropmarks are not required when using actual label stock, only when printing on A4 paper
italic	Use an italic font
align P	Position the text left, center or right	>align right
background B F	Sets the background color to the color 'B'. If 'F' is supplied then the text color is set to F.	>background red white
square at X,Y width W	Draw a filled in square at the position X,Y for a height/width of W. The square is drawn in the most recent >color

Symbol Translation

Lines that start the less than ( < ) undergo a process called symbol translation, which means a value from the current product/customer/sale is inserted into the label at this point.

The line is scanned for values between two percent signs, " %token% ". The token string is then decoded and reformatted. Often a token will include formatting instructions, such as "/$2" which means this is a price output, please print 2 decimal places. If you wish to print a percent sign, enter two percent signs, " %% "

Definition	Example Output	Notes
<%unitprice%	2.9500
<$ %unitprice%	$ 2.9500
<$ %unitprice/$2%	$ 2.95
< %% %plucode%%%	% AB12%
<> SPECIAL <	> SPECIAL <	If you want to print a > as the first character, use a < to invoke symbol translation, then the text you want. You don't have to include tokens

Example 1

SPECIAL

PEARS
>color red
$2.95
>color black

Today Only

Prints as
»

SPECIAL

PEARS
$2.95

Today Only

This label will print 4 lines, with 2 blank lines as well. The $2.95 line will be printed in red. As no size or fontsize is provided, the text will be maximised to the paper size.