Cardbox Talk

Hiya! please help as I'm a newbie and getting incredibly frustrated! I'm trying to send info from cardbox to create address labels. I've tried various things but nothing is working. Could it be because I'm only on the trial period? And I have openoffice, not word.. do I need to pay out for Word?
Basically I created a merge box, but that seems to mean nothing because no program asks for that info, just for fields! When I go into Open Office it offers to do the mail merge wizard but can't find my cardbox file! Please could someone give me very basic instructions of what to do because I'm losing the will to live!! Thank you in advance!

- edit format
- choose file / printersettings and desing your label or choose a known one
- make a mergeblock within the borders of your label, containing all wanted fields
- save format
- print...!

Help point 527.... ;-)

regards
bert

Hi Bert

This was very helpful, thank you! But I now have a problem with the merge block. If I move it to the printable area it covers over my other fields. I can't seem to move the printable area boundaries. Also I can't find anything to help me print just a selection of the record. Do I need to set up a whole new set of records just for printing?
Sorry to be a pain!

regards
Oily

If I understand you well you did add a mergeblock into your native format.
For label printing it is better to make a separate format (Edit-Format-New) containing your mergeblock and add to this format it own printer/paper settings.

Every format can contain all or a selection of the database fields or a mergblock with relevsnt fields
Right?

Regards
Bert

Hi again Bert
You're being such a help - thank you! Yes I added a merge block to my original format, but it looks like I can't print just the merge block from that database... so as I understand it I need to create a new database just for my merge block data so I can use that to print from?
Of course I'll now have to figure out how to transfer all the data from my 322 records across to a new database! Here's hoping there's a very easy solution!
Haven't tried creating any more than my one format so far!
Many thanks!

Oily

Read carefully:
"For label printing it is better to make a separate format (Edit-Format-New) containing your mergeblock and add to this format it own printer/paper settings."

You has to do this in the existing database. You wil not damage you data.

Perhaps you can learn something from this: http://www.cardbox.com/download/concepts.pdf.
And look also into the sample databases which are installed when you did setup Cardbox.

Regards
Bert

Perhaps I may add the following to Bert's explanation:

Your native format determines which fields your database contains and, immediately after the creation of your database, it offers the first and at that moment only way of viewing your data.

As the native format represents all your fields, this format always shows ALL your fields.

Sometimes you don't need to see all you fields, e.g. when you print labels. In that case you create another format, like Bert told you. This format does NOT change your database, only changes to the native format do that. So, don't create another database, just another format. What such a secondary format does is that it shows your fields in another way. You may choose to view only some selected fields, you may change the size, the order, the appearance. Anything you like.

After you have created such a format, it will be stored in the database and you can use over and over again. But when you re-open your database, you have to tell Cardbox to switch to that particular format. You can do that with View > Change format.
Cardbox will then show your records in the way that was defined by you in that format.

So, create a format, choose which kind of label you use, and create your merge block. Switch to this format before you print.

Just a hint: if you use a non-standard label, don't try to define it yet. Pick a standard label and print it to ordinary paper to see if you get things working. You can always make the adjustments after you've mastered the basics.

That is brilliant - thank you! Now I get it! I was so afraid of losing all my records or having to re-type it all, so thanks for a simple explanation which has put my mind at rest!
All this computer stuff can be a tad confusing if you're not computer minded!
Thanks again - I'm actually looking forward to giving it a go now!

Regards

Oily