[barcode] Printing label sheets

[Brendon Oliver]

Hi Max,

Thanks for your reply.

On Tuesday 07 June 2005 11:12, Maximilian HEISE wrote:

> The current table mode knows about 6 margins (four starting from left
> ccw=>left,bottom,right,top and two internal ones) xmargin0, ymargin0,
> xmargin1, ymargin1, ximargin and yimargin (the last ones are symmetrical
> applied if i remember correctly).
>
> With -t you set the four margins around xmargin0, ymargin0, xmargin1,
> ymargin1. With -g you only set xmargin0 and ymargin1, i do not think you
> should set margins with -g when printing tables.

Yes - it appears that both -g's get_geometry() and -t's get_table() both set 
xmargin0/1 and ymargin0/1, so if you've supplied margins for both options, 
then whichever option you've given last is the one whose margins are applied.  
The comment circa line 470 in main.c is the giveaway:
	/* FIXME: print warnings for incompatible options */
(grrrr).

So, what I'm working with now is -t to set row x col, and -g to set the size 
of the label (neither with margins).  That's giving me a sheet which almost 
fist horizontally, bit still no joy vertically.  I think I will have to hack 
something up to allow you to set a page header or leader space to indicate 
where printing should start.  Without that, barcode wants to place the 3x15 
rows of labels centered on the sheet.

> With -m you set the two 
> internal margins. Note that if you do not specify the internal margina
> they will be set to 10pt (10 * 25,4mm * 72 = 3,527mm), as the a standard
> value.

> -m margin(s)
>      Specifies an internal margin for each sticker in the table. The
> argument is of the form "<xmargin>,<ymargin>" and the margin is applied
> symmetrically to the sticker. If unspecified, the environment variable
> BARCODE_MARGIN is used or a default internal margin of 10 points is used.

One question here with -m:  If I have -g 51x15 to set the label size (talking 
in mm here).  If I set -m 2.5x2, should that give me a printed barcode size 
of 46mm x 11mm (ie 51 - 2.5 - 2.5 / 15 - 2 - 2 since its symmetrical) which 
is rouhgly centered within the label, or should I get a label 51x15mm which 
is _surrounded_ by a 2.5mm margin left & right and 2mm margin top & bottom - 
I'm not sure what it _should_ be doing.

On the whole, I find the manpage rather ambiguous as far as the margin 
descriptions go.  If I can figure out how it _should_ be working I may 
rewrite it (at least for our internal purposes!). ;-)

> So AFAIK it should not be a problem to set the things you need. Have a
> look at main.c, functions get_geomety, get_margin, get_table.

Heh, that's exactly what I'm doing... have included a bunch of fprintf()'s too 
so I can see how the cmdline options are being used - just not getting my 
head around it yet.

> I did not look at the cmd line parsing, but i guess if -g overrides -t
> then you have -g after -t? The -u can be applied more than once on the
> cmd line to change the units (mm, inch, pt) in use, so logically the cmd
> line is parsed one after another starting from argv[1].

Yes - but you can have multiple -u which resets the units of measure for 
following arguments (crazy if you ask me: who would be mad enough to mix pt, 
mm, cm and inches in the one command!).  So my first arg is -u mm (I also set 
BARCODE_UNIT=mm just to be sure).

Thanks for your thoughts.

Cheers,

- Brendon.

-- 

Nielsen//NetRatings
Brendon Oliver
[brendon.oliver@redsheriff.com]

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