Conference vaxuum::document_ft

Hans,

  After your original phonecall, I've been thinking about that one too,
  as I wrote some applications making labels on those A4 sheets with
  LaTeX {picture} environments. However, there I am in full control of
  what goes where and with what font type (large/small/bold etc).

  In Document there is no such thing to handle it universally: one time
  labels may look like     

       xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
       xxxxxxxx                 in normal fonts
       xxxxxxxxxxxxxx


  another time I just one one line very large (e.g. PAR AVION - which
  seems to mean BY AIRMAIL even to civilized nations who don't use french
  as their language). 

  I think a design for one special type of labels (with fixed layout,
  no of lines etc) is feasible. I'm thinking more along lines of a
  tabular construct the way MEMO is made: 
  two \hbox-es of � A4 width \kern0pt together with internally a \vbox
  of the label height:

    \def\sixteenlabels#1#2#3#4#5#6{%
     \hbox to  11.5cm                      % first label width
          {\vbox to 32mm {\hbox {#1}       % first line on label
           \ifx0#2\else   \hbox {#2}\fi    % second line if present
                               :           %  etc
           \ifx0#6\else   \hbox {#6}\fi    %
                         }%
          } %                              % end of label
     }%                                    % end of definition


Then we still need a tag like <LABEL_TEXT>(line1\line2\line3...)
to be defined (using info in Tag Designer's guide, for Europe also available
from IJSAPL::$1$DJA19:[KIT.DOC]TAG_TRANSLATOR.LN03)...

I Think however, that making labels is not one of the prime target areas
for Document, but (in my opinion) neither are letters and memos and other
one-off one page documents (trouble is they look so nice when printed!)

Theo

Please find below a design file to accomplish 8*2 address label printing.
It expects the data to be present in the TO_ADDRESS tag of the letter document.
Therefor process your SDML file with TAG$LETTER.

E.g.  <TO_ADDRESS>(My_name\My_address\My_ZIP_code\<UNDERLINE>(My_city))
      <TO_ADDRESS>(His_name\His_address\\<UNDERLINE>(His_city))

The Zip code (if present) will be placed on the same line in front of
the city. This is the preferred Dutch way to do it.

Hans.
______________________________________________________________________________


\input doc$standard_formats:tex$article.design

\def\normaltextfontspecs{\twelvepoint\raggedrightspacing}%

\hsize=210mm
\hoffset=0pc

\vsize=275mm
\voffset=-12mm

\physicalpagewidth=\hsize
\gutterwidth=0pc

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Initialize mult-column mode
%
\SDMLmultcol
\def\twocolwidth{105mm}%
\def\twocol{\beginmultcol{2}%
            \pageheight           % set by multcol to \vsize
            \pagewidth            % set by multcol to \hsize
            {\twocolwidth}        % width of each column
            \physicalpagewidth    % set by multcol to \hsize
            {L}                   % set left on physicalpagewidth
}
\twocol% start out in two-column mode

\def\toaddress#1#2#3#4#5
{
 \hbox %
   {\vbox to 33.65mm{\vss \hbox{#1 \hfill}
  \ifx0#2\else   \hbox{#2 \hfill} \fi
  \ifx0#4\else   \hbox{\ifx0#3\else   #3 \kern10pt \fi #4 \hfill} \fi
  \ifx0#5\else   \hbox{#5 \hfill} \fi
           \vss  }%
   }%
}

\def\leftfooterline{}
\def\rightfooterline{}