tutorial request - printing barcode labels

[dustymc]

@DerekSikes (and anyone else who prints labels) - a short how-to video would be awesome.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BESoZ0mgRgONfSNziHpeumIIlnAWtoOnXxPISgQy2mU/edit#gid=0

[DerekSikes]

1) my lab techs send me a csv file of barcodes for specimens that need labels broken out by label type (pinned vs vial)

2) I find those records in Arctos (this often requires multiple searches since Arctos only allows 1000 barcodes to be searched on in a single search. My last label making effort involved making over 6,000 labels

3) I download the data in a customized format that Dusty created for UAM Insects

4) I import the data into a Filemaker pro database I designed with all the field names matching those of the downloaded data to allow easy import

5) I then edit the data to reduce it in size to fit on small insect labels. This often involves reducing lengthy habitat descriptions to just 'forest' or use of abbreviations (eg Denali National Park and Preserve = Denali NPP), or reducing 5 collectors to just 'Smith et al.' etc. Sometimes during this process I find errors in the Arctos data and then either fix them in both databases, or just fix them in Arctos and then go back to step 2 and start over

6) When ready I print labels to PDF using the filemaker database (pinned labels 3 or 3.5 point sans serif font, 5 or fewer lines, 15mm x 6mm each label) to send back to my techs to print on archival paper.

Hope that helps.

Derek

On Mon, Mar 4, 2019 at 7:01 AM dustymc notifications@github.com wrote:

@DerekSikes https://github.com/DerekSikes (and anyone else who prints labels) - a short how-to video would be awesome.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BESoZ0mgRgONfSNziHpeumIIlnAWtoOnXxPISgQy2mU/edit#gid=0

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/ArctosDB/documentation-wiki/issues/67, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AIraM7xmtLkplR87AH_mHr5thxDXG7YZks5vTUNCgaJpZM4bcqTp .

--

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Derek S. Sikes, Curator of Insects Professor of Entomology University of Alaska Museum 1962 Yukon Drive Fairbanks, AK 99775-6960

dssikes@alaska.edu

phone: 907-474-6278 FAX: 907-474-5469

University of Alaska Museum - search 400,276 digitized arthropod records http://arctos.database.museum/uam_ento_all http://www.uaf.edu/museum/collections/ento/ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Interested in Alaskan Entomology? Join the Alaska Entomological Society and / or sign up for the email listserv "Alaska Entomological Network" at http://www.akentsoc.org/contact_us http://www.akentsoc.org/contact.php

[campmlc]

I purchase pre-printed barcode labels that have a non-informative base-36 number that can be applied to any specimen part. We purchase these as duplicate or triplicates so that one label can be applied to a specimen and the second can be applied to a printed datasheet.

I print adhesive field labels for cryovials that have an embedded informative barcode that translates our field number series and tissue type, plus human readable. I use Bartender software for this, with a template I'd be happy to share.

On Mon, Mar 4, 2019 at 12:57 PM DerekSikes notifications@github.com wrote:

1) my lab techs send me a csv file of barcodes for specimens that need labels broken out by label type (pinned vs vial)

2) I find those records in Arctos (this often requires multiple searches since Arctos only allows 1000 barcodes to be searched on in a single search. My last label making effort involved making over 6,000 labels

3) I download the data in a customized format that Dusty created for UAM Insects

4) I import the data into a Filemaker pro database I designed with all the field names matching those of the downloaded data to allow easy import

5) I then edit the data to reduce it in size to fit on small insect labels. This often involves reducing lengthy habitat descriptions to just 'forest' or use of abbreviations (eg Denali National Park and Preserve = Denali NPP), or reducing 5 collectors to just 'Smith et al.' etc. Sometimes during this process I find errors in the Arctos data and then either fix them in both databases, or just fix them in Arctos and then go back to step 2 and start over

6) When ready I print labels to PDF using the filemaker database (pinned labels 3 or 3.5 point sans serif font, 5 or fewer lines, 15mm x 6mm each label) to send back to my techs to print on archival paper.

Hope that helps.

Derek

On Mon, Mar 4, 2019 at 7:01 AM dustymc notifications@github.com wrote:

@DerekSikes https://github.com/DerekSikes (and anyone else who prints labels) - a short how-to video would be awesome.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BESoZ0mgRgONfSNziHpeumIIlnAWtoOnXxPISgQy2mU/edit#gid=0

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/ArctosDB/documentation-wiki/issues/67, or mute the thread < https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AIraM7xmtLkplR87AH_mHr5thxDXG7YZks5vTUNCgaJpZM4bcqTp

.

--

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Derek S. Sikes, Curator of Insects Professor of Entomology University of Alaska Museum 1962 Yukon Drive Fairbanks, AK 99775-6960

dssikes@alaska.edu

phone: 907-474-6278 FAX: 907-474-5469

University of Alaska Museum - search 400,276 digitized arthropod records http://arctos.database.museum/uam_ento_all http://www.uaf.edu/museum/collections/ento/ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Interested in Alaskan Entomology? Join the Alaska Entomological Society and / or sign up for the email listserv "Alaska Entomological Network" at http://www.akentsoc.org/contact_us http://www.akentsoc.org/contact.php

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/ArctosDB/documentation-wiki/issues/67#issuecomment-469398689, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AOH0hFiYdeyOSa4DRiq_mw8th6JP7fOsks5vTXqIgaJpZM4bcqTp .

[DerekSikes]

oops - what I wrote was on printing data labels. Not barcode labels.

We use bartender software to print barcode labels.

-Derek

On Mon, Mar 4, 2019 at 10:56 AM Derek Sikes dssikes@alaska.edu wrote:

1) my lab techs send me a csv file of barcodes for specimens that need labels broken out by label type (pinned vs vial)

2) I find those records in Arctos (this often requires multiple searches since Arctos only allows 1000 barcodes to be searched on in a single search. My last label making effort involved making over 6,000 labels

3) I download the data in a customized format that Dusty created for UAM Insects

4) I import the data into a Filemaker pro database I designed with all the field names matching those of the downloaded data to allow easy import

5) I then edit the data to reduce it in size to fit on small insect labels. This often involves reducing lengthy habitat descriptions to just 'forest' or use of abbreviations (eg Denali National Park and Preserve = Denali NPP), or reducing 5 collectors to just 'Smith et al.' etc. Sometimes during this process I find errors in the Arctos data and then either fix them in both databases, or just fix them in Arctos and then go back to step 2 and start over

6) When ready I print labels to PDF using the filemaker database (pinned labels 3 or 3.5 point sans serif font, 5 or fewer lines, 15mm x 6mm each label) to send back to my techs to print on archival paper.

Hope that helps.

Derek

On Mon, Mar 4, 2019 at 7:01 AM dustymc notifications@github.com wrote:

@DerekSikes https://github.com/DerekSikes (and anyone else who prints labels) - a short how-to video would be awesome.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BESoZ0mgRgONfSNziHpeumIIlnAWtoOnXxPISgQy2mU/edit#gid=0

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/ArctosDB/documentation-wiki/issues/67, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AIraM7xmtLkplR87AH_mHr5thxDXG7YZks5vTUNCgaJpZM4bcqTp .

--

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Derek S. Sikes, Curator of Insects Professor of Entomology University of Alaska Museum 1962 Yukon Drive Fairbanks, AK 99775-6960

dssikes@alaska.edu

phone: 907-474-6278 FAX: 907-474-5469

University of Alaska Museum - search 400,276 digitized arthropod records http://arctos.database.museum/uam_ento_all http://www.uaf.edu/museum/collections/ento/ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Interested in Alaskan Entomology? Join the Alaska Entomological Society and / or sign up for the email listserv "Alaska Entomological Network" at http://www.akentsoc.org/contact_us http://www.akentsoc.org/contact.php

--

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Derek S. Sikes, Curator of Insects Professor of Entomology University of Alaska Museum 1962 Yukon Drive Fairbanks, AK 99775-6960

dssikes@alaska.edu

phone: 907-474-6278 FAX: 907-474-5469

University of Alaska Museum - search 400,276 digitized arthropod records http://arctos.database.museum/uam_ento_all http://www.uaf.edu/museum/collections/ento/ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Interested in Alaskan Entomology? Join the Alaska Entomological Society and / or sign up for the email listserv "Alaska Entomological Network" at http://www.akentsoc.org/contact_us http://www.akentsoc.org/contact.php

[campmlc]

Back to labels in general, I would like to ask about customized formats for data labels - this would be hugely helpful, especially for small labels. It is very hard to use Cold Fusion report builder to get the dimensions exactly right on a report template, and I waste a lot of datamax printer paper trying to get it to fit properly in the right dimensions. Making small changes can be very time consuming.

On Mon, Mar 4, 2019 at 6:09 PM DerekSikes notifications@github.com wrote:

oops - what I wrote was on printing data labels. Not barcode labels.

We use bartender software to print barcode labels.

-Derek

On Mon, Mar 4, 2019 at 10:56 AM Derek Sikes dssikes@alaska.edu wrote:

1) my lab techs send me a csv file of barcodes for specimens that need labels broken out by label type (pinned vs vial)

2) I find those records in Arctos (this often requires multiple searches since Arctos only allows 1000 barcodes to be searched on in a single search. My last label making effort involved making over 6,000 labels

3) I download the data in a customized format that Dusty created for UAM Insects

4) I import the data into a Filemaker pro database I designed with all the field names matching those of the downloaded data to allow easy import

5) I then edit the data to reduce it in size to fit on small insect labels. This often involves reducing lengthy habitat descriptions to just 'forest' or use of abbreviations (eg Denali National Park and Preserve = Denali NPP), or reducing 5 collectors to just 'Smith et al.' etc. Sometimes during this process I find errors in the Arctos data and then either fix them in both databases, or just fix them in Arctos and then go back to step 2 and start over

6) When ready I print labels to PDF using the filemaker database (pinned labels 3 or 3.5 point sans serif font, 5 or fewer lines, 15mm x 6mm each label) to send back to my techs to print on archival paper.

Hope that helps.

Derek

On Mon, Mar 4, 2019 at 7:01 AM dustymc notifications@github.com wrote:

@DerekSikes https://github.com/DerekSikes (and anyone else who prints labels) - a short how-to video would be awesome.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BESoZ0mgRgONfSNziHpeumIIlnAWtoOnXxPISgQy2mU/edit#gid=0

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/ArctosDB/documentation-wiki/issues/67, or mute the thread < https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AIraM7xmtLkplR87AH_mHr5thxDXG7YZks5vTUNCgaJpZM4bcqTp

.

--

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Derek S. Sikes, Curator of Insects Professor of Entomology University of Alaska Museum 1962 Yukon Drive Fairbanks, AK 99775-6960

dssikes@alaska.edu

phone: 907-474-6278 FAX: 907-474-5469

University of Alaska Museum - search 400,276 digitized arthropod records http://arctos.database.museum/uam_ento_all http://www.uaf.edu/museum/collections/ento/ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Interested in Alaskan Entomology? Join the Alaska Entomological Society and / or sign up for the email listserv "Alaska Entomological Network" at http://www.akentsoc.org/contact_us http://www.akentsoc.org/contact.php

--

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Derek S. Sikes, Curator of Insects Professor of Entomology University of Alaska Museum 1962 Yukon Drive Fairbanks, AK 99775-6960

dssikes@alaska.edu

phone: 907-474-6278 FAX: 907-474-5469

University of Alaska Museum - search 400,276 digitized arthropod records http://arctos.database.museum/uam_ento_all http://www.uaf.edu/museum/collections/ento/ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Interested in Alaskan Entomology? Join the Alaska Entomological Society and / or sign up for the email listserv "Alaska Entomological Network" at http://www.akentsoc.org/contact_us http://www.akentsoc.org/contact.php

— You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/ArctosDB/documentation-wiki/issues/67#issuecomment-469492923, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AOH0hLW3uNwVW88UtDRLhSlSg-81_CD_ks5vTcO8gaJpZM4bcqTp .

[dustymc]

@campmlc I don't understand - do you just decide you want something different every now and then or are you trying to compensate for variable-length text or manipulate text or ???

The CF Reporter is one of the factors keeping us in Enterprise CF. Crystal Reports costs about the same as CF, and everything else might run in an open-source CFML interpreter. Happy to talk about the options, but in my limited experience Crystal (and everything else) is just differently-weird, not really better.

Custom export formats are generally pretty trivial, so if you want to use your own software instead of the built-in options I can probably help with that too.

If you're doing something predictable with formatting text, I can probably help. Most things can be done in the SQL, and the pre-function thing exists to deal with anything that can't (or can't easily).

Here's a QnD collector truncation:

select
  collectors,
  case when length(collectors)>20 and collectors like '%,%' then
    substr(collectors,0,instr(collectors,',')-1) || ' et al.'
  else
    collectors
  end x from
flat where rownum < 10000 group by collectors;

Bud Wiese
Bud Wiese

R. Mickelson
R. Mickelson

Susan Savage, Robb S. A. Kaler, Kristin A. Sesser
Susan Savage et al.

U. S. Geological Survey
U. S. Geological Survey

Susan Savage, Gretchen Jehle, Robb S. A. Kaler
Susan Savage et al.

[campmlc]

We have had to make new labels for parasite vials of different sizes and different accessions that need different content fields. We got one to work that was still missing fields we needed, and had trouble trying to modify it. Something easier to use than CF Report Builder would be great, if anything exists. Or, provide modifyable templates to choose from using CF for a variety of label sizes, with fill-in the blanks for different fields and collection types.

On Mon, Mar 4, 2019, 6:55 PM dustymc notifications@github.com wrote:

@campmlc https://github.com/campmlc I don't understand - do you just decide you want something different every now and then or are you trying to compensate for variable-length text or manipulate text or ???

The CF Reporter is one of the factors keeping us in Enterprise CF. Crystal Reports costs about the same as CF, and everything else might run in an open-source CFML interpreter. Happy to talk about the options, but in my limited experience Crystal (and everything else) is just differently-weird, not really better.

Custom export formats are generally pretty trivial, so if you want to use your own software instead of the built-in options I can probably help with that too.

If you're doing something predictable with formatting text, I can probably help. Most things can be done in the SQL, and the pre-function thing exists to deal with anything that can't (or can't easily).

Here's a QnD collector truncation:

select collectors, case when length(collectors)>20 and collectors like '%,%' then substr(collectors,0,instr(collectors,',')-1) || ' et al.' else collectors end x from flat where rownum < 10000 group by collectors;

Bud Wiese Bud Wiese

R. Mickelson R. Mickelson

Susan Savage, Robb S. A. Kaler, Kristin A. Sesser Susan Savage et al.

U. S. Geological Survey U. S. Geological Survey

Susan Savage, Gretchen Jehle, Robb S. A. Kaler Susan Savage et al.

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[dustymc]

easier to use than CF Report Builder

A multitude of things are capable of printing from data. Nothing is likely to be as integrated as the current reporter, which may or may not be a component of "easy." Easier is also likely to limit capabilities. I'm not sure that's something "Arctos" should support - some reports/users use the current capabilities - but I'm up for anything and maybe there is a better approach. If you don't need the complexity you are welcome to use something easier, and I can help get data.

provide modifyable templates to choose from using CF for a variety of label sizes, with fill-in the blanks for different fields and collection types.

I think that's essentially what http://handbook.arctosdb.org/how_to/How-to-Create-Labels.html suggests, except you start with something that actually works for someone. I'm happy to play with other ideas, but I don't think I'm understanding what you want.

[Jegelewicz]

CF reporter is weird and difficult, but I have used Crystal and it is no better. Are there people who do contract work making reports in CF Reporter? It would be nice not to have to learn it once every few years or so...

Also, one of my stumbling blocks has always been lack of knowledge of the actual field names in the database. Could we have a simple list of them somewhere for easy access when creating these reports?

[dustymc]

contract work making reports in CF Reporter?

Probably - there's a weird "gig" culture around that sort of thing. I'm happy to do that too, but in my experience - we had hard-coded reports for several years before CF came out with the reporter - it doesn't work very well. A report is built, works on some sample dataset, it gets pushed out, user complains that some other data makes X off by 3 pixels, X gets moved 3 pixels which squishes Y, developer does something random, bla bla bla, round and round we go, and all of that involves a couple of emails and significant latency. It's way less frustrating if the user can move things over a couple pixels - at least for some users.

We as a community could create and maintain 2 or 3 basic reports or something, but I don't know if anyone would use them - I think "normal" is to have a lot of local customization.

actual field names

Use the table browser if you need actual. I just added http://arctos.database.museum/Reports/reporter.cfm?action=flatFieldNames which is probably what most users want most of the time - I'll link it somewhere in a few...

Reports/WriteSQL then

select * from flat where 1=2

will do the same thing (minus the ordering)