rburns@fortune.UUCP (Randyll Burns) (05/06/85)
I just used MicroSoft file for the first time this weekend. Overall I thought it was a find personal database program. The one big problem I had with in involved printing mailing labels: It just doesn't seem to like continuous feed labels. We finally got it to work by selecting the single page print option and adjusting the printhead at the top of each page. Has anyone else had this problem?? MS File is really good I think for beginners,It would be nice however if someone were to write a "bridge" between it an a more sophisticated DBM like condor or DBase III.
davidl@orca.UUCP (David Levine) (05/09/85)
(I decided to post this, rather than mailing it, because I think it's of
general interest.)
I just printed about 300 mailing labels using Microsoft File. Here are two
points to consider:
Be sure the usable area of the record (the white part of the Form
window) is exactly 1 inch high. I've been told that it's necessary
to put the top field right up at the top of the white area and the
bottom field right at the bottom, but I don't know if that's really
required.
Set the top and bottom margins to zero. (Page Setup menu).
The biggest headaches I had were with the Imagewriter. It insists on
spitting out an entire page of (expensive!) labels at the beginning and end
of each run, its high speed and print buffer (usually good points) mean that it
usually wastes a page or more of labels before you can stop it if you notice
something wrong, and I found it impossible to wind these particular labels back
through the machine (they kept peeling off down in the mechanism... yuck!).
It took me a LOT of labels to find out how to set the printer so that it starts
printing at the top of a page.
David D. Levine (...decvax!tektronix!orca!davidl) [UUCP]
(orca!davidl.tektronix@csnet-relay.csnet) [ARPA]