Operation
Data Files
Before you can send tag information to the KE28xx series tag printer, you must create a file containing the data to be printed.
The XLTags program extracts information from this file and sends it to
the tag printer one record at a time.
The XLTags program can read files of two types: comma-delimited text files (preferred) and Microsoft Excel spreadsheet files.
Comma-Delimited Text Files
The XLTags program natively uses plain text files, where each line of text represents a tag to be printed. The fields on the tag are separated
in the text file with a comma character. Every line of text
in the file must contain the exact same number of fields.
You may use any of several methods for creating this type of file
including Notepad or another text editor (do not use Word or Wordpad
unless you save the file as plain text.) You can also create
the file with Microsoft Excel and save it as comma-delimited CSV format
as discussed below. The file extension for this type of file
is .TXT.
Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet Files
The XLTags program also has a limited ability to read Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (.XLS) files. The spreadsheet must be designed to use
only a single workbook and must not include formulas, functions nor any
other non-text data. Each column in the spreadsheet
represents a field of data, and each row represents a record (one tag.)
If the spreadsheet contains special features, or is excessively large, the XLTags program may take a very long time to read it, or it
may hang while trying. Because of this, we recommend that
you save your spreadsheet as a CSV (comma-delimited) format.
This will create a plain text format file with a .CSV extension that you
can rename to .TXT and open with XLTags.
File Format
Regardless of how you create the data file, its format is very important for the XLTags program to function properly. As
previously stated, each line of text in the data file represents one tag
and each field within that line represents a data to be
printed. However, the XLTags treats the first field within
the record differently from the others.
The KE28xx InfoTag® printer can print up to 20 fields of text on a tag. Each field, however, is limited to no more than 40
characters. In addition to this limitation, the tag geometry
itself may place restrictions on the maximum number of characters for
any given tag layout. It would be nice if the tag printer
had the capability to take a long text field and break it up over
several lines, performing word wrap as required to ensure that words are
not split between lines. The tag printer itself is not
capable of this, but fortunately the XLTags program is.
The first field of a record can be more than 40 characters long and can also contain more characters than can fit on any one line of the tag
layout. XLTags will automatically split the line into
multiple lines, performing word wrap as needed, and send the data to the
printer. All fields after the first are sent as-is and must
fit within the 40 character and available real estate limitations.
When designing your tag layout, you must create operator-entered text fields as the first "X" fields in the layout. The
number of fields to reserve depends upon the maximum number of
characters in the longest first field of the file. For
example, if the longest first field in the text file is 75 characters
and the tag layout will only accommodate at most 25 characters per line,
then you must reserve the first three operator entered fields of the
layout to hold the data. Each additional field in the file
will occupy fields 4, 5, 6 etc.
It may take some experimentation to determine the optimum tag layout for your data. Just be sure to use the longest first field
in the data when determining the layout.
Program Operation
When you run the program on your computer, you will see a display like the one shown below in Figure 1.
Figure 1
The top of the display is the program's main menu as well as a toolbar of most frequently used commands. Just below the
toolbar is an area that shows the contents of the currently loaded
file. In this figure, no file has yet been loaded, so the file
area is blank. Just below the file area is an indicator that
shows the current record being processed. Note that the area
showing the file information is editable so you can make changes to the
data and then save these changes if desired.
In fact, you could create the entire data file right in this editor and
save it to disk.
Below the file information is an area that shows each item's data as it is being processed. To the right of this is a display of the
status of the job.
The bottom of the display is the status bar which is here showing the communications port settings. As shown here, no COM port has been
selected.
Configuring the Program
When you open the Setup menu, you will see the menu as shown in Figure 5 below.
Figure 5
KE285x Printer - Select the KE285x series InfoTag® printer.
KE287x Printer - Select the KE287x series InfoTag® printer.
Communications - Configure the communications (COM) port that connects your PC to the tag printer.
When you select the Communications menu item, or click the Communications tool on the toolbar, the communications setup dialog will
appear as shown in Figure 6 below.
Figure 6
You must select a COM port that exists on your computer and is connected to the Host port of the tag printer. You must also
match the baud rate, data bits, stop bits and parity settings of the
Host port of the tag printer. Click OK when you are
finished.
Opening a Data File
When you select the File menu, you will be presented with a menu as shown below in Figure 2
Figure 2
New - Clear the currently loaded file from memory and prepare for a new file.
Open - Open a file from disk.
Save - Save the contents of the file, overwriting
the original contents on disk.
Save As - Save the contents of the file to a new file.
Send - Send the data file to the KE28xx series
tag printer.
Cancel - Stop the data download process
Exit - Close the XLTags program.
When you select the Open command, a dialog will
appear that allows you to select the data file to open. This dialog is
shown in Figure 3 below.
Figure 3
This is a standard Windows Open dialog that allows you to select TXT and XLS files. Browse to the folder that contains your data
file, select the proper file type, click the file name and then click
Open.
Note that if you saved your Excel file as a comma-delimited file format (.CSV) then you must rename the extension to .TXT prior to
opening the file.
Printing the Tags
When you select the Send command (or click the
Send button on the toolbar) a dialog form will appear that allows you to
configure and begin the download process. This dialog is
shown in Figure 4 below.
Figure 4
At the top of the form, you are required to specify how the first field in the data records gets split among the fields of the tag
layout. First specify the number of fields of the tag layout
that have been reserved for the split data. Second, set the
limit on the number of characters that can fit into each of these split
lines.
In the middle of the form, you are required to enter the starting and ending record numbers to be printed. As shown in the figure, all records
will be printed. If you wish to print only a subset of the
available records, enter the appropriate starting and ending
record numbers.
The bottom of the form allows you to specify the quantity of tags to be printed. If you check the box next to "Obtain
Quantity from Field #", you can enter a number that indicates which
field from the data text file contains the number of tags to
print. With this feature, you can print different amounts of
tags for each record. The "Number of Copies of each
tag" field allows you to create exact duplicates of each tag.
When you have entered all of the required information, click the Ok button to begin the download process. The XLTags program will send
each record of data from the file to the tag printer to be
printed. As each record is printed, the Current Record indicator
will increment and when it reaches the Ending Record Number, the process
will complete.
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