Assigning Data to a Holder

To assign data to a data holder, click on the desired rectangle with the left mouse button and complete the pop-up dialog which appears.

The data assigned to the data holder is displayed in the “Current Assignment” window. Initially this will be blank. Immediately below the window are 2 buttons, and . The first will delete the entire contents of the window, the second will enter a new line character to force a new line in multiple line text boxes. You can also enter a new line from the keyboard by holding the CTRL key and pressing ENTER.

Below the “Current Assignment” window are 2 pull-downs, one containing the fields available in the database and the other the fields available in the User Information. Notice that there is an additional entry in the pull-down box titled From Database called Datakey. This can be selected to place a unique number on the badge, either as text or a bar code. The number is assigned by the program when a new badge is created and cannot be changed by the user. This is a useful feature for adding a unique ID number to each badge.

The data which can be placed in the “Current Assignment” window can consist of any combination of static or fixed text and fields from any of these sources. This powerful capability allows a single data holder to display information from more than one place in the database.

This is best clarified by example. Let us say that we wish to put into a single data holder the following text:

My Name is Fred Jones of ABC Co.

In the database the first and last names are stored in fields “FirstName” and “LastName” and the company name is from the user information. First we make sure that the “Current Assignment” window is empty. The Clear button can be used to ensure this. Then with the cursor in this window, “My Name is ” is typed in (not the quotes and don’t forget the space after the s). Then the “FirstName” field is found in the From Database pulldown. If it is already showing, just click the Add button alongside. If not it will automatically be added when it is selected. The “Current Assignment” window will now show:

My Name is «FirstName»

A space is then entered and the “LastName” selected in the pulldown. The word “of” is typed in surrounded by spaces. Finally the company name is added by clicking on the Add button along side the From User Information pulldown. If it is not showing, selecting it will automatically add it to the window. The final result is:

My Name is «FirstName» «LastName» of ‹Company›

the «» indicate the data comes from the database and the ‹› from the user information. This line can be edited at any time as a normal line of text. (For example, the “of” could be changed to “from”.) However you cannot change the data inside the special markers, except to delete it. Positioning the entry cursor within a special field and typing a character or pressing Delete or Backspace will result in the field name being removed. Field names can be inserted wherever the insert cursor is located, by selecting a field name from the pulldowns or pressing Add. If the cursor is inside a special field when this is done the field will be deleted.

This field concatenation capability is a very useful feature. One obvious use is to join first and last names correctly regardless of how many letters in the first name, as in the example above. There are other uses. For example, you can use it in a bar code to precede or append (or both) variable data with fixed data. This allows site codes or other fixed data to be created. Other uses will become apparent.

When assigning text to a text box, the dialog will also include a set of formatting buttons. These buttons will not be present when assigned text to other types of rectangles. The formatting buttons insert special character sequences in the text where you want the formatting to change. The buttons and there function are shown in this table.

Start Bold – displays as - characters after this will be displayed bold

Stop Bold – displays as - characters after this will be displayed in normal weight

Start Italic – displays as - characters after this will be displayed in italic

Stop Italic – displays as - characters after this will be displayed in normal form

Start Underline – displays as - characters after this will be displayed underlined

Stop Underline – displays as - characters after this will be displayed not underlined

Increase Font Size - displays as <L> Characters after this will be displayed 1 point size larger. This format control can be repeated for greater font size increase.

Decrease Font Size - displays as <S> Characters after this will be displayed 1 point size smaller. This format control can be repeated for greater font size decrease.

To insert a format control change, position the cursor at the point in the text where the change should occur and click the desired button.