[aklug] Re: Printing Return Address Labels the unix Way

Mike Bishop wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 16, 2007 at 11:14:03PM -0900, Fielder George Dowding wrote:
>> Greetings all, earlier today Doug presented me with the problem of
>> getting a Word document to print correctly in OO Writer. It turned out
>> the document simply prints out return addresses labels. The Avery labels
>> are four across and twenty down. Well, there is an easier way.
>>
>> I am reminded not to be too hard on Windows and Word users because they
>> don't have much to work with. We in the unix world are spoiled because
>> we expect to have all the tools that one might need to do little tasks
>> such as this. Each of us probably have a preferred technique, and in
>> this case, my preferred technique is to whip up a quick little
>> PostScript program with the help of vim and gv.
>>
snip-a-roony!!!

> I have an awk script that takes a label definition file and a list
> of addresses and generates postscript labels via groff if anyone is
> interested. Definitely the unix way, but perhaps a bit geeky these
> days ...
>
> The definition files (avery.5160, avery.5351, folders etc) are pure
> roff but easy enough to modify. Address lists are simply adresses
> separated by a blank line.
>
> Let me know if you would like me to post ...
>
> Rgds,
> --
> Mike Bishop
> Willow, Alaska
> ---------
Yes! By all means Mike, I sure would like to see an awk script that uses
roff. I don't use awk since I have switched to perl, but I find it
enlightening to see how others have solved similar problems in the UNIX
fashion.

At Mable T. Caverly Senior Center, I have been using perl to write a
PostScript file to print address labels from a comma delimited (actually
it is a bang delimited) file produced from the OpenOffice Calc
spreadsheet that holds the address data. Very ugly, but much better than
struggling with OOWriter and mail merge to try to print labels. I
suppose I should clean up the code, make it generic, and post it (some
time after Christmas and the new year).

-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best regards       Debian/GNU Linux
Fielder George Dowding, Chief Iceworm        "etch" Testing
dba Iceworm Enterprises, Anchorage, Alaska   User Number 269482
Since 1976 - Over 30 Years of Service.       "irad" 301256
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