I've been trying to get a plain, dirt simple mailing label list.

Designed one in Reporter and it runs fine there but won't run from

a Basic+ prog. There are many complicated threads herein about why

that is but, gee, there ought to be a simple way to do a simple task.

Anyone able to share such? Thank you.

Hate to tell you, but my simple solution was to export the data to a Word Mail-Merge file. That way, the user can define the label size, type, and a lot of easy to do things, including sorting, etc. Much easier than trying to do it in OI. Works like a charm.

Don M.

Jim,

I was wondering… what seems to be the problem? Can you give some clues on what is causing your problems? I do not seem to have problems printing on preprinted forms. And well maybe that is because I have some control over what and how the forms are designed.

Don , 2 things - 1. How do you "EXPORT" since that very nice function does not seem to exist in OI; 2. I'm dealing with users who are VERY

unsophisticated. Thanks for your help

Richard, I'm unclear what was unclear about my post but, the essence is that it is VERY difficult to run Reporter because Oengine is busy counting the clouds or something. I haven't found any other tool within OI that can do a standard label structure. OIPI might do it but, it looks very difficult also. Vintage 1930's tabulating machines could print labels more easily then what I've come across so far. All help MUCH appreciated.

Well, here's a snippet of the actual code that writes the data out to a user-selected output file:

BYTE.POS is initialized to 0 and is incrmented for each write

FVAR is a variable initialized with an OSOPEN statement and points to the user-selected filename

* first create a header for the data to follow:

* CREATE HEADER FIELDS for Microsoft Word Mail Merge

REC="PATIENT NAME","ADDRESS","CITY","STATE","ZIP"':CRLF

OSBWRITE REC ON FVAR AT BYTE.POS ;* WRITE TO FILE

IF STATUS() THEN GOTO WRITE.ERROR

BYTE.POS+=LEN(REC) ;* INCREMENT OFFSET

* BREAK OUT FIELDS - Dict calls are easier

PATNAME={PAT_NAME}

PATNAME=FMT(PATNAME,"L#35") ;* GET BLANKS @ ID OUT

PATNAME=TRIM(PATNAME)

PATADDR={ADDRESS}

PATCITY={CITY}

PATST ={ST}

PATZIP ={ZIP}

REC='

IF LEN(PATNAME) THEN

IF LEN(PATADDR) THEN

	IF LEN(PATCITY) THEN

		IF LEN(PATST) THEN

			IF LEN(PATZIP) THEN

				REC:=QUOTE(PATNAME):",":QUOTE(PATADDR):",":QUOTE(PATCITY):",":QUOTE(PATST):",":QUOTE(PATZIP):CRLF

			END

		END

	END

END

END

IF LEN(REC)=0 THEN GOTO READRECORD

* WRITE THE OUTPUT RECORD

FOOBAR=MOD(BYTE.POS,65536)

IF FOOBAR=21930 THEN

  BYTE.POS-=1

  OSBREAD BYTE FROM FVAR AT BYTE.POS LENGTH 1

  REC=BYTE:REC

END

OSBWRITE REC ON FVAR AT BYTE.POS ;* WRITE TO FILE

IF STATUS() THEN GOTO WRITE.ERROR

BYTE.POS+=LEN(REC) ;* INCREMENT OFFSET GOTO READRECORD

It's pretty easy .. uses a Gasbar to measure progress. The user is offered a variety of sorting / selection options which ultimately results in a resolved Select List which is processed in a READNEXT loop.

HTH

Don M.

Thanks Don! I got lost in being annoyed and didn't put my brain in gear. That is indeed a nice simple solution. Thanks again. Jim

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