You can start gLabels in the following ways:

When you start gLabels, the following window is displayed.

Figure 1 gLabels Start Up Window

The gLabels window contains the following elements:

To create a new label or business card, choose File ▸ New to display the New Label or Card dialog. Select the media type and orientation for the new document, then click OK. A new document is displayed in the display area of the gLabels window.

If your particular media type is missing from this dialog, see Section 3.6 ― To Create a Custom Template

To open a file, choose File ▸ Open to display the Open File dialog. Select the file that you want to open, then click OK. The file is displayed in the display area of the gLabels window.

You can also open multiple files in gLabels. The application creates a separate application window for each open file.

The application records the paths and filenames of the most recent files that you have edited and displays the files as menu items on the File ▸ Recent Files menu.

You can run gLabels from a command line and open a single file or multiple files. To open multiple files from a command line, type the following command, then press Return:

glabels file1.glabels file2.glabels file3.glabels

When the application starts, the files that you specify are displayed in separate gLabels windows.

You can save files in the following ways:

To change the media type and/or orientation of a label, choose File ▸ Properties to display the Label properties dialog. Select the new media type and orientation for the document, then click OK.

To create a new custom template, choose File ▸ Template Designer ... to display the Template Designer dialog. This dialog will assist you in creating a custom template for most types of label or card stationery that you may encounter.

If you prefer, you can create your templates manually. For this option see Section 6 ― Manually Creating New Templates

To close the current document, choose File ▸ Close to close the application window. If the current document is modified, a confirmation dialog will be presented, allowing you to save the document or cancel the command. If the window being closed is the only open window, gLabels will exit.

To quit gLabels, choose File ▸ Quit. This is equivalent to closing all open windows. See Section 3.7 ― To Close a File.

To print labels or cards, choose File ▸ Print to display the Print dialog. Once print options have been selected, click Print to print the labels or cards. To simply preview the results, click Print Preview instead.

The Print dialog allows you to specify the following print options:

Objects are created by choosing the appropriate selection under the Objects ▸ Create Object submenu or the Drawing Toolbar. This will place the display area into object creation mode as indicated by its cursor. To return to the default object selection mode without creating an object, choose Objects ▸ Select Mode. This will return the display area's cursor to the default selection arrow.

The following describes the object creation mode for each object type:

A prerequisite for performing operations on objects is the selection of individual objects or groups of objects. The display area must be in the object selection mode to create new selections, as indicated by an arrow cursor. The object selection mode is selected by the Objects ▸ Select Mode menu item, or the corresponding command on the Drawing Toolbar.

Object selections can be manipulated using the standard clipboard operations Cut, Copy, Paste, and Delete.

Most object properties can be modified through the object editor sidebar, illustrated below. To use the object editor, a single object must first be selected. See Section 3.11 ― To Select Objects.

Figure 4 Object Editor Sidebar

The object editor will contain a subset of the following tabbed sections, depending on object type:

Objects can also be manipulated in the following ways.

Document Merge (sometimes called "Mail Merge") is a powerful feature that allows a unique label or card to be printed for each record in an external data source.

The first step to performing a document merge is to prepare a source document that contains your merge data. This data could be mailing addresses or any other data that you wish to create unique labels or cards for. Currently back-ends only exist for text files and the evolution data server -- others are planned. The currently supported text-file format is very simple: each line is a record; fields are delimited by commas (CSV), tabs, or colons; and newlines can be embedded into fields by using the "\n" entity. This file could be created using any text editor or could be created by another program or script. A common way of creating CSV files is to export them from a spreadsheet program.

A label must then be configured to "point at" this data file. To configure the merge properties of a document, choose Objects ▸ Merge Properties menu item to display the merge properties dialog. This dialog is used to select the exact data file format and file name (location) of the merge data.

Finally, once the label has been configured for a data file, field keys can be inserted into text objects and used as source or data for barcode objects and image filenames for image objects. See Section 3.13 ― To Edit Object Properties for more information on using merge data for these object types.

Now that your label is configured, gLabels will print a unique label for each record in your source document -- substituting fields from each record for field keys in the all text, barcode, and image objects.

See Section 5 ― Document Merge Tutorial for a detailed tutorial on the document merge feature.

In this example we are organizing an orientation party for the new crew members of our ship. We have a list of freshman crew members that we created in gnumeric and exported as the following CSV file. We could have created this file by using a text editor, but heck it is the 23rd century.

Name,Department,SN
"Jim Kirk",Management,"SC937-0176 CEC"
"Mr. Spock",Sciences,S179-276SP
"Leonard McCoy",Medicine,unknown
"Montgomery Scott",Engineering,SE-197-54T
      

In gLabels we have created a new gLabels document using the Avery 5395 "Name Badge Labels" template. Next we use the Objects ▸ Merge Properties menu item to display the merge properties dialog. We use this dialog to select the source type (in our case CSV) and the merge source (filename) as shown.

Figure 5 Merge properties dialog

Before applying the merge source, we uncheck the first record since it is only column headers from our original gnumeric spreadsheet and would simply waste our first label. We could also unselect any other records that we didn't want to print a label for.

We can also view each record in more detail by clicking on the appropriate expander (the little triangles) as shown. Once we are satisfied with the selections in this dialog we click OK to accept the changes.

Now we start adding objects to our gLabels document as shown.

Figure 6 Adding objects

In this example we have added three text objects and a barcode object. The first text object contains only simple literal text ("Hello, my name is"). The second text object contains a single merge field ("${1}") corresponding to the first field of a record (first column of a line) which contains the new crew member's full name. The third text field contains both literal text ("Department: ") followed by a single merge field ("${2}") corresponding to the second field or the crew member's department. The barcode object is configured to use field (or key) "3" which contains our crew member's starfleet serial number.

Now we can print our name tags by selecting the File ▸ Print menu item. This will display print dialog as shown below.

Figure 7 Printing name tags

Just to make sure our labels are going to look okay, we select the Print outlines option and click Print Preview. This will display a print preview dialog as shown below.

Figure 8 Name tags preview

Everything looks good, so we can now load up our printer with the appropriate label stock, print our name tags and start beaming our guests aboard.

In this example we are going to throw a party and need to print mailing address labels for our invitations. We have a list of our closest friends that we created in gnumeric and exported as the following CSV file. It should be noted that not everyone has a middle initial or a two line address.

LAST,FIRST,MI,ADDR1,ADDR2,CITY,STATE,ZIP
,,,,,,,
Critter,Ess,S,"123 Faux St.",,Alexandria,VA,22310
Doe,John,,"Apt 1X","451 Mystery St.",Trenton,NJ,08601
Summers,Joyce,,"1630 Revello Dr",,Sunnydale,CA,95037
McGarret,Steve,O,"404 Piikoi Street",,Honolulu,HI,96813
Kramer,Cosmo,,"Apt 5B","129 W. 81 St.","New York",NY,10024-7207
      

In gLabels we have created a new gLabels document using the Avery 5512 "Address Labels" template. Next we use the Objects ▸ Merge Properties menu item to display the merge properties dialog. We use this dialog to select the source type (in our case CSV) and the merge source (filename) as shown.

Figure 9 Merge properties dialog

Before applying the merge source, we uncheck the first record since it is only column headers from our original gnumeric spreadsheet and would simply waste our first label. We also unselect the second record which is empty (an artifact of our original spreadsheet). We could also unselect any other records that we didn't want to print a label for.

We can also view each record in more detail by clicking on the appropriate expander (the little triangles) as shown. Once we are satisfied with the selections in this dialog we click OK to accept the changes.

Now we start adding objects to our gLabels document as shown.

Figure 10 Adding objects

In this example we have a single text object. This text object contains all of our merge fields organized on multiple lines as a mailing address. Notice that fields ${4} and ${5} (corresponding to ADDR1 and ADDR2) are each located with no other text on their own lines. When gLabels encounters a field as the only text on a line, it will not expand the line if the field is empty.

Now we can print our address labels by selecting the File ▸ Print menu item. This will display print dialog as shown below.

Figure 11 Printing address labels

Just to make sure our labels are going to look okay, we select the Print outlines option and click Print Preview. This will display a print preview dialog as shown below.

Figure 12 Address labels preview

Everything looks good, so we can now load up our printer with the appropriate label stock, print our address labels and start mailing our party invitations.

Our last party was a great success, and now we need to print mailing address labels for the invitations to a new one. To simplify this, we can use the Evolution addressbook, because the address data of all our friends is stored there.

In glabels we have created a new gLabels document using the Avery 5512 "Address Labels" template. Next we use the Objects ▸ Merge Properties menu item to display the Merge properties dialog. We use this dialog to select the source type (in our case Data from default Evolution addressbook) as shown.

Figure 13 Merge properties dialog

Once we have chosen Data from default Evolution addressbook as our merge source, we will get a full list of its content. Initially, all entries are checked. Assuming we were planning a really big party, we could leave this selection untouched (but let's keep our budget in mind). We will now select or unselect certain entries by clicking on the appropriate checkboxes, or we could use the Select all and Unselect all buttons to activate or deactivate all entries in the address book.

We can also view each entry in more detail by clicking on the appropriate expander (the little triangles) as shown. Once we are satisfied with the selections in this dialog, we will click the OK button to accept the changes.

Now we start adding objects to our glabels document as shown.

Figure 14 Adding objects

In this example we have a single text object again. This text object contains all of our merge fields organized on multiple lines as a mailing address.

Now we can print our address labels by selecting the File ▸ Print menu item. This will display the print dialog as shown below.

Figure 15 Printing address labels

Just to make sure our labels are going to look okay, we select the Print outlines option and click Print Preview. This will display a print preview dialog as shown below.

Figure 16 Address labels preview

Everything looks good, so we can now load up our printer with the appropriate label stock, print our address labels and start mailing our party invitations.

A Template node describes a single stationary product. It must contain one instance of any type of Label node (Label-rectangle, Label-round, or Label-cd). This node can be followed by zero or more Alias nodes.

A Label-rectangle node describes the dimensions of a single label or business card that is rectangular in shape (may have rounded edges).

Figure 17 Label-rectangle Parameters

A Label-round node describes the dimensions of a simple round label (not a CD).

A Label-cd node describes the dimensions of a CD, DVD, or business card CD.

Figure 18 CD Label Parameters

A Markup-margin describes a margin along all edges of a label.

A Markup-line describes a markup line.

A Markup-circle describes a markup circle.

A Markup-rect describes a markup rectangle.

A label node may contain multiple Layout children. If labels are arranged in a simple grid pattern, only one layout is needed. However, if labels are arranged in multiple grids, such as a running bond pattern, multiple layout tags can be used. Note: a single label can always be treated as a grid of one.

Figure 19 Layout Parameters

An Alias node provides the name of a product with the same size and layout characteristics as the parent template.