[My Solution] Re: Mailing Labels from MySQL database on web

[Landy Atkinson]

Thanks for all the ideas.  Here is a list of the basic paths 
suggested along with the comments given for each method.  Nobody 
claimed any of these was really good and hoped someone would suggest 
a better approach.

1. Use MS Word's mail merge and MS Query with MyODBC as the data source.
    - Only good for Windows & MacOSX and requires fairly high end user
      knowledge to download and install MyODBC and set up MS Query.
2. Use PHP to generate VBScript to control MS Word.
    - Difficult to set up.
3. Use PHP to build a PDF on the server in the proper Avery label format.
    - Nobody suggested a PDF file builder for PHP, but suggested there
      were cgi-scripts available for this purpose.
4. Use one of the reporting packages which can be found at sites like
   freshmeat.net or sourceforge.net, but nobody responding had tried
   this.
    - Nobody suggested a particular package or stated how well this
      might work.
5. Use PHP to create the CSV file and present it as an HTTP
   right-click download link on the web page.
    - This might be a good solution which could work with most
      any word processor.
6. Use PHP to dynamically produce an HTML page formatted to
   work with your labels and print it right from there.
    - Dependent upon which browser and printer is being used, i.e. not
      very device independent.
Number 1 & 5 seemed like the best of what was suggested for my 
purposes.  I decided to take path #1 and it seems to work pretty 
well.  I've written up instructions for the end user to follow and 
will give it a try as soon as I get MySQL permissions straightened 
out.  It turns out my ISP sets up only an admin user for the MySQL 
database on our site and this user does not have GRANT privileges. 
Mailing label printing works fine when MyODBC is set up using the 
admin account.  I have a Support Ticket in with my ISP to create a 
couple of users with only the necessary privileges.  Once this 
happens, I will pass it on the the Club Secretary and see if this is 
really a workable solution.

-Landy

----- Original Message -----
From: "Landy Atkinson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 2:25 PM
Subject: Mailing Labels from MySQL database on web

 I have a club roster database set up on our web site in which the
 underlying data is in a MySQL database.  I am using PHP to access the
 data and display it on a web page as a phone list, e-mail list,
 > directory etc.  Now what I need is to give the club secretary a way
 > to print mailing labels.
 What is the best way to approach this?  As a temporary measure, I
 > used an auxiliary program (MySQL-Front running on a Windows PC) to
 > create a CSV file which I e-mailed to the secretary along with
 > instructions on how to use the file in mail merge document in MS Word
 to create labels.  I thought about writing PHP code to create a CSV
 formatted output on a web page which the secretary could copy and
 paste into a document for the mail merge, but it seems there should
 be a better way.
 Any suggestions?

 -Landy

 --
 MySQL General Mailing List
 For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql
 To unsubscribe:    http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]



--
MySQL General Mailing List
For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql
To unsubscribe:    http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]