[Xlog-discussion] Printing QSL cards/stickers

[alexc]

Hi guys,

Belive it or not, you can already print QSL cards/stickers from XLog output
using a simple yet powerful program called GLabels,
http://freshmeat.net/projects/glabels. Here's an extract from it's README file:

"...Beginning with version 0.4.x, gLabels has a document-merge
capability that might not be as intuitive as these other features.

The first step to performing a document merge is to prepare a source
document that contains your merge data. This data could be mailing
addresses or any other data that you wish to create unique labels or
cards for.  Currently only a simple back-end for text files exists --
others are planned.  The currently supported text-file format is very
simple:  each line is a record; fields are delimited by tabs,
commas, or colons; and newlines can be embedded into fields by using
the "\n" entity.  This file could be created using any text editor or
could be created by another program or script.

A label must then be configured to "point at" this data file.  This is
accomplished with the "merge properties" dialog.  This dialog is used
to select the exact data file format and file name (location).  Customized
field keys can also be defined (the default keys are the column numbers).

Finally, once the label has been configured for a data file, field keys
can be inserted into text and barcode objects in their property dialogs.

Now that your label is configured, gLabels will print a unique label for
each record in your source document -- substituting fields from each
record for field keys in the all text and barcode objects."

So, if XLog will be able to export the log into a TAB separated text file (I
guess colons or commas are not good separators in this case) and without any
header line, the user will be able to import this file into GLabels and design
his/her own QSL cards with images, colored text or whatever he/she whishes.
I have tried it to see whether it actually works, and yes, it does. It took me
about 20 minutes to produce the attached output (png image), including the time
it took to import the log into a spreadsheet and create a TAB separated file.

This was just a quick and dirty proof-of-principle experiment to demonstrate
what can be done with little effort.


Cheers,
Alex, OZ9AEC