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Label-Master ][ - Mailing Label Generator Program Version 1.0 Page 1 Label-Master ][ Manual Version 1.0 Funnel Development Labs 1432 E. Commercial Springfield, MO 65803 July 22, 1986 Copyright (c) 1986 Funnel Development Labs All rights to Label-Master are reserved by Funnel Development Labs. Label-Master ][ - Mailing Label Generator Program Version 1.0 Page 2 T H I S I S A S H A R E W A R E P R O G R A M We encourage you to give away copies of this program to all your friends. If, after using the program, you find it to serve a useful purpose for you, please consider registering your copy with us. To register simply fill in the form at the end of this manual and return it to us with a check for $25. You will receive our latest version of this program, a quality printed copy of this manual, and be included on our mail list for future product releases. We individually serial number each copy of this program that we register so that if you give away a copy of your registered version of Label-Master, and your friend gives it to someone you've never even heard of, and this guy should register his copy, we will know it was a descendent of your copy and reward you with $10. So, if you want to try to turn this program into a profitable venture, send in your registration and then give this program to everyone you see, upload it on all your local BBS systems, and include it in any club libraries. We will you send you $10 for every copy that is registered with us that contains your individual serial number. While we encourage you to give away copies of this program to all your friends. There is one rule however; you are not allowed to charge for this software package. The Shareware concept of distributing is based on the belief that the best way for the individual user to determine the value of a given piece of software for his or her self is to use that software in a real environment for a test period. If, after a week or two, you are still using this program, then it is clearly worth something to you and you should send in your contribution. No modifications to the Label-Master program are allowed, the removal of Funnel Development Labs credits in this manual or the attached software is a violation of Federal Law. A special note to Corporations, Site Licensing is available by arrangement with Funnel Development. Do NOT make multiple copies for use inside your corporation until you contact Funnel Development Labs. Funnel Development Labs. 1432 E. Commercial Springfield, MO 65803 Label-Master ][ - Mailing Label Generator Program Version 1.0 Page 3 T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S Page System Requirements ..................................... 5 Getting Started ......................................... 6 What is Label-Master? ................................... 7 How to Begin ............................................ 8 Using Label-Master ...................................... 9 Misc Notes .............................................. 12 Appendix A (Standard Label Sizes) ....................... 13 Appendix B (Applications for Label-Master) .............. 14 Appendix C (Mail-Ordering Labels) ....................... 15 Appeddix D (Register your Copy of Label-Master ][) ...... 16 Label-Master ][ - Mailing Label Generator Program Version 1.0 Page 4 This Page has been intentionally left blank. Label-Master ][ - Mailing Label Generator Program Version 1.0 Page 5 S Y S T E M R E Q U I R E M E N T S Label-Master requires an IBM PC/XT/AT or CLOSE compatible with 128K or more of memory, a Color/Graphics or Monochrome Card and monitor, and a standard parallel port with any parallel printer. Label-Master was developed under MSDOS 3.1, but will execute from any Version of MSDOS since 2.0. It has been test with most memory resident utilities on the market for compatibility. At this time it is known to be compatible with SIDEKICK, SuperKey, TopView, DESQview, and QSPOOL. For special character fonts, the NICE printer utility will provide seven character sets for use in conjunction with Label-Master for making your labels unique. Label-Master ][ - Mailing Label Generator Program Version 1.0 Page 6 G E T T I N G S T A R T E D Throughout the manual, you may run into the characters <Return> and <CR>. These refer to the return key on the keyboard. If you see these in the manual, press the return key rather than typing in the string. Label-Master is started by typing "LABLMSTR <Return>" from the DOS prompt as follows: A>LABLMSTR <Return> Please notice the initial screen. Label-Master initially gives you four options. To select these choices, simply press the Function key on your system that corresponds to the option you wish to select, alternately, the number keys <1>, <3>, <5>, & <7> will also select your choices. Option <F1> of the initial menu takes you into the heart of the Label-Master program. What happens here will be discussed later. Option <F3> will again display our request for your fair contribution for the use of Label-Master. After reading this screen, pressing any key will return you to the initial menu. Option <F5> will print a copy of this manual on your printer if you are ready to receive it. It is strongly recommended you do this before trying to use the Label-Master program. Option <F7> will exit the Label-Master program and return control of your computer to DOS. Label-Master always knows the legal responses to any question it might ask you. If for example you have a menu with options 1, 2, & 3, the program will not accept the response "A". Whenever you answer a question correctly, you will hear a positive BEEP, and all illegal responses will produce a negative BUZZ sound. The program does allow you to disable these sounds should you find them distracting. Label-Master looks for 3 files on the disk as follows: LABLMSTR.MAN - The text file that holds this manual. LABLMSTR.CNF - A configuration file. LABLMSTR.LBS - The file that stores any saved labels. If you are just starting, you may not have the second file, that's alright since the program will create it if its not present. The first file is only needed if you intend to print this manual. The Label-Master program will operate properly without it in all other respects. Label-Master ][ - Mailing Label Generator Program Version 1.0 Page 7 W H A T I S L A B E L - M A S T E R Label-Master is a program designed to ease the task of printing self-adhesive labels. A self-adhesive label is the little piece of paper with the sticky back that a lot of your junk mail uses for mailing labels. These labels can be purchased at most office supply store, several good mail order business forms companies also carry a wide selection of these labels. Funnel Development also carries a selection of these labels for direct sales to our users. Refer to the pricing guide at the end of this manual for more information. The uses for Label-Master range from simply printing a bunch of return address labels for you or your company to making property identification labels for your possessions. Any job that needs, or could benefit from the use of, self-adhesive labels is right up the alley for using Label-Master. There is a list of applications in the back of this manual. If you come up with a new and interesting use for Label-Master, please tell us as it's nice to know what creative ideas our users have come up with. Label-Master is NOT a mail-list program. It is not designed with that purpose in mind. If you need a mail-list program, there are several good ones in the marketplace. Label-Master ][ - Mailing Label Generator Program Version 1.0 Page 8 H O W T O B E G I N The first thing you need to do before using Label-Master is to determine the size of the labels you are using. Most labels are sold in cardboard boxes with the label size clearly marked. Look at the box you have for something that reads like this: label size: 3-1/2 x 15/16 This means that these particular labels are 3 and a half inches wide, and about an inch high. Find this information about your labels and write it down, you will need it later so you can tell the Label-Master program what size labels you are using. If for some reason your labels do not have the size marked on the container, you will need to very carefully measure them and write down these measurements. Please be very accurate as the precision of the printer requires absolutely correct measurements. It is more than likely your labels are of a standard size. Please refer to Appendix A for a list of the standard label sizes for comparing to your measurements. Once you know the sizes, the next thing is to insert the labels into your printer. Most labels come on a specially designed paper carrier with tractor feed holes on each of the two sides. To use this kind of labels, you will need to release the tractor feed guide locks and slide the feed mechanisms so that they align with the holes on the sheet of labels. Refer to your printers User Manual for information on how to do this. If your labels do not have the guide holes, you will have to use the Friction Feed mode of your printer. Again, refer to your printer manual on doing this. After your labels have been properly feed into your printer, the next step is to execute the Label-Master program. Label-Master ][ - Mailing Label Generator Program Version 1.0 Page 9 U S I N G L A B E L - M A S T E R Now that you have the labels loaded into the printer and the Label-Master program in the computer, go to the Label-Master Main Menu. From here you are confronted with several options. We will now discuss each option in detail. The first option "[A] - Print Test Labels" is a special option that will print labels full of asterisks. The purpose of this is to allow you to properly position the printer so that when you print your "for Real" labels, everything will be positioned where you want it. Be sure to position the labels both vertically and horizontally. Also, note the the type of test labels printed are dependent upon how the program has been configured. It is important to configure the program to match your labels before you even print test labels, to configure the program use option "[C]" from the main menu. After you select option "[A]", the program will instruct you to prepare the printer, you should not make sure that all is well with the printer, your labels, etc. You are then given two options, you can either go ahead and print the test labels by pressing <Return>, or if something is wrong and needs to be corrected first, press the <Esc> - Escape key and the program will Abort the test labels and return to the Main Menu assuming you go ahead and print the test labels, the printer will now print them. After 1 row of labels, the system will stop printing and ask if you wish to print the test labels again. The purpose of this is to allow you to find adjust the print position and retest your changes. If you answer "Y" to the prompt, you will receive another row of test labels, if you answer "N" you will return to the Main Menu. Option "[B] - View Current Label" simply draws an image of your label on the screen for your approval. It is especially useful to look at a label that you have previously stored on disk and just reloaded. If you tend to use cryptic filenames, it's easy to forget which stored label is which and looking at them without having to waste paper is a great way to reestablish what's what. Option "[C] - Configure Label Master Program" is probably the most complicated feature in the program, but with a little practice, it will be as easy to use as any other feature. You can exit without doing anything by immediately pressing <Return> upon entry into this option. This option has several choices, first it allows you to tell the Label-Master program how many labels there are across your page. Rarely will this number be over 4 unless you are using some nonstandard labels. Next, it allows you to specify the size of the label. Remember the sizes you were supposed to write down in the previous sections of this manual? Here's where we put them to work. The Label-Master program does all it's printing using a print size of 6 lines to the vertical inch and 10 characters to the horizontal inch. Take these figures and multiply them by the actual label height and width. This gives you an absolute maximum label capacity. In Label-Master ][ - Mailing Label Generator Program Version 1.0 Page 10 U S I N G L A B E L - M A S T E R (Cont.) reality, however, this absolute max. requires you to have such fine adjusting on your printer that it's almost impossible to work with. Therefore when you set your label sizes in this option, you should enter 1 line less than the absolute maximum capacity of your label. As for the number of characters per line, the Label-Master program automatically forces the useable area of all labels to be 2 characters less than the width that you enter here. Another feature here is the ability to turn all but the most important sound effects on or off. There are still certain error messages that will make sounds even if the regular sound effects have been turned off. After setting these configurations parameters, you are given the option of making them permanent. What this means is that the current configuration will be written out to disk and that from this point on (Until you change them again) whenever you load the Label-Master program, this will be the configuration the program will start with. If you don't save the configuration, it will only be in effect until you exit the program. Option "[D] - Define a Label" is where a lot of the work is done. This is where you actually tell the program what you want on your label. You need to have previously set the program configuration so that the Label-Master program already knows the size of your label. You will notice that the screen shows two vertical bars on the screen, these represent the left and right limits to the test you can type on your label, and the program will not permit you to exceed these limits. Basically, all you need to do is type in the information you wish on each line of your label. Should you decide that the current line you are typing is completely wrong and you want to start that line over, the <Tab> key will automatically start the current line over again, erasing all previous text on that line. If you should change your mind about making this label, the <Esc> key will abort the entire label. This is useful where after you start entering the label information, you discover that the program configuration you have chosen is really not what you want. The backspace key is used to erase the last character entered. After you finish the entire label, you will be asked if you wish the text to be horizontally centered on the label, if you answer <Y> for Yes, your label will be reformatted on the screen so you can see what it will look like on a label. After completing the entire label, you are asked for a final approval. If you approve the label, you will return to the Main Menu to go ahead and print it, if you do not like the label, you will start over again in the label editor to redesign a new one. Option "[E] - Print Mailing Labels" is where you've been working to get to all this time. By the time you get here, you've either entered a label or loaded one from disk, made sure that the program configuration matched your labels, and used Option "[A]" to insure that your labels are correctly aligned in your printer. Now, all you got to do is tell Label-Master how many labels you want, Label-Master ][ - Mailing Label Generator Program Version 1.0 Page 11 U S I N G L A B E L - M A S T E R (Cont.) kick back and let it go. The program will ask you to confirm your wishes to print, just to be sure. While your labels are being printed, the screen will tell you how many labels it is supposed to print, which label it is currently printing, and even display a bar graph to give a instant recognition response as to how far into the printing job the program is at any given instant. Option "[F] - Save Label to Disk" does exactly that, this option is used to save to disk any labels you consider important enough to want to keep. When you save a label, the labels size information is also recorded so that when you reload the label, the program will be automatically reconfigured with the loaded labels size information. You will be told how many labels currently exist in the labels file, then you will be asked for a title for this label. This title distinguishes this label from any others that you may have previously saved. The Labels Directory Option displays the titles of each of the previously saved labels should you ever forget the name you saved you label under. Should you wish to revise a label that you have already stored to disk, you need to delete the old label first before resaveing the new, assuming you wish to use the same label title. Option "[G] - Load Label from Disk" is very simple, you will be asked the title under which you have saved the label you wish to load, type it in exactly as you did when you saved it, and it will load into the Label-Master program. You can confirm this by then using the "[B] - View Current Label" option to look at how the label actually looks. Option "[H] - Labels Directory" simply shows you a list of the labels that have been stored out to disk. You are also given the option of deleting any labels that you no longer wish to keep. Option "[I] - Return to Initial Menu" takes you back to the first screen you saw when you started the Label-Master program. It is from the Initial Menu that you can now exit the program. Label-Master ][ - Mailing Label Generator Program Version 1.0 Page 12 M I S C. N O T E S Program Update Service ---------------------- By mailing in your donation and registering your copy of Label-Master you qualify for free program updates as new versions of this program are released. Information about new versions is generally available thru normal shareware distribution channels. If you mail us a disk and an SASE about every six months, we will provide you with updates to Label-Master, and releases of all our new programs. This is a service that does take up time, however, so we can only offer this to individuals who have registered their copies with us. And, please, don't send update disk more frequently than each six months. Where to Look for more Funnel Development Labs programs ------------------------------------------------------- New Funnel Development programs are usually distributed thru selected BBS system across the country. Generally, once a program gets onto a few dozen boards, is go across the country in a matter of a few short weeks. Watch the download sections of your local boards, or check with any local IBM Users Groups in your area, many of these groups maintain a large library of Shareware and one of our active goals is making sure that Users Groups are kept current with our latest products. If you live in an area without access to local sources of Funnel Development Products and you have a phone modem, call our home bulletin board, "The Computer Matrix" in Springfield, MO. The number is (417) 869-5294. This is a TBBS system and follows the standard TBBS structure for menus. You will have to register on the system, but will automatically receive full access to the Main Menu selection "<S>upport for Funnel Development Labs." After selecting, be sure to tell the system that you are using an IBM Type system, even if yours is one of the many clone machines. If you answer with one of the other system types, your access to this board is automatically locked out, the reason for this is to screen out the many Commodore 64 and Atari 800 Users for which we have no service to provide. We support Xmodem downloading and all our files are compressed using ARC Compression. If you do not have the ARC Utility, then first download the file, "UNPACK" from the system, it can be used to unpack our files after you received them. There are Help files on the system to assist you in using this utlity. Also on the board is a <F>eedback area for users to share tips, comments, or suggested improvements with us here. We maintain this board strictly for the support of our Users, it is a resource you should take advantage of. The System supports 300/1200/2400 baud calls and operates 24 Hours a day. Label-Master ][ - Mailing Label Generator Program Version 1.0 Page 13 APPENDIX A S T A N D A R D L A B E L S I Z E S Label Measurements Letters Wide x Lines High 2 3/4 x 15/16 26 x 5 3 1/2 x 9/16 34 x 3 3 1/2 x 15/16 34 x 5 3 1/2 x 1 7/16 34 x 8 3 1/2 x 2 34 x 12 4 x 15/16 39 x 5 4 x 1 7/16 39 x 8 4 x 1 15/16 39 x 11 5 x 15/16 49 x 5 There are many label sizes in addition to those listed above, if your labels don't match anything above, carefully measure them and then experiment a little with Label-Master to find the correct character dimensions for creating your own custom labels. Label-Master ][ - Mailing Label Generator Program Version 1.0 Page 14 APPENDIX B LABELING APPLICATIONS FOR USING LABEL-MASTER ][ * Return Address Labels * Index Tabs * Stockroom Labels * Shelf Markers * Name Badges * Binder Labels * Sale Tags * Storage Bin Labels * Report Titles * Property ID Tags * Warning Labels * Luggage Name Tags * Instruction Labels * Advertising Specialties * FRAGILE Stickers for shipping * Disk Labels * Etc, Etc. If you develop an application with Label-Master that you feel is especially unique, tell us about it. We love to hear from our Users. Label-Master ][ - Mailing Label Generator Program Version 1.0 Page 15 APPENDIX C Ordering Labels from Funnel Development Labs. We ship self-adhesive labels mail order from our office in Springfield, MO. To Order refer to the following pricing list, determine your order and use the enclosed order form for fastest processing. Your labels will be shipped within 72 hours. Please note that all orders must be pre-paid by check or money order, no COD or Credit Cards sales are accepted. Thanks for using Label-Master ][ for you labeling needs. ============= Funnel Development Labs Labels Pricing List ============== Color Size Labels Across Quantity/Box Price/Box ------------------------------------------------------------------------ White 3 1/2 x 15/16 1 5000 23.95 White 3 1/2 x 15/16 2 10000 34.45 White 3 1/2 x 15/16 3 15000 49.75 Lt. Green 3 1/2 x 15/16 1 1000 14.95 Pink 3 1/2 x 15/16 1 1000 14.95 Yellow 3 1/2 x 15/16 1 1000 14.95 Blue 3 1/2 x 15/16 1 1000 14.95 Red 3 1/2 x 15/16 1 1000 14.95 Green 3 1/2 x 15/16 1 1000 14.95 Clear 3 1/2 x 15/16 1 1000 29.95 Note: These clear labels allow the color of whatever they are attached to show thru. THESE PRICES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT ANY NOTICE !!! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ******************************************************************************* ** Funnel Development Lab's Self-Adhesive Labels Order Form ** **---------------------------------------------------------------------------** ** Name:______________________________________ Date: ____ / ____ / ____ ** ** Address:___________________________________ Payment Form: ** ** City:______________________ St _____ ** ** Zip:____________ Phone: ___________________ Check _____ MO ______ ** **===========================================================================** ** Color Size # Across Price/Box # of Boxes Total ** ** ** ** _________ ______________ ___ ____.___ _____ _____.___ ** ** ** ** _________ ______________ ___ ____.___ _____ _____.___ ** ** ** ** _________ ______________ ___ ____.___ _____ _____.___ ** ** ** ** Mail this form to: Total of Above Items: -----.-- ** ** Funnel Development Labs. + Shipping 9.00 ** ** 1432 E. Commercial St. ** ** Springfield, MO 65803 Total Order $ ____.__ ** ******************************************************************************* Label-Master ][ - Mailing Label Generator Program Version 1.0 Page 16 APPENDIX D If you would like to Register your copy of Label-Master ][, please fill out this registration form. And thanks for your support for our program. ******************************************************************************* ** ** ** Label-Master ][ Program Registration Form ** **===========================================================================** ** ** ** YES, Please register me as a Label-Master Owner. I understand that I ** ** will receive a copy with the latest version of this program along ** ** with a quality printed copy of this manual. I understand that my ** ** new copy of the program will have a serial number and that if ** ** anyone else should register a copy of my serial #, I will receive ** ** $10.00 as a bonus, so I should give away as many copies as I can. ** **---------------------------------------------------------------------------** ** ** ** Name: ______________________________________ Date: ___ / ___ / ___ ** ** Serial Number ** ** Address: ______________________________________ of this Copy: ** ** ** ** City: _______________ St: _____ Zip: _______ _____________ ** ** ** **===========================================================================** ** ** ** $25 - Program Registration Allows you direct updates from us _____ ** ** ** ** $35 - Source Code Gets you a copy of the Source _____ ** ** ** ** $35 - Commercial Site License-For Commercial Applications _____ ** ** ** **===========================================================================** ** ** ** ** ** Mail to: Funnel Development Labs. ** ** 1432 E. Commercial ** ** Springfield, MO 65803 ** ** ** *******************************************************************************