Bulk create from a spreadsheet

This is the workflow the software is built around: design a label once, point it at a spreadsheet, set how many of each you want, check the sheets, print. The design and the data stay separate, so the same template works with next week's file.

The whole sequence

1. Design the label on the Designer tab, using [Column Name] wherever the value should come from your spreadsheet.
2. Save it as a template so you can reuse it.
3. Import Excel in the data panel under the canvas.
4. Set Copies for each row, or leave every row at 1.
5. Choose paper and label size in the Designer's properties panel.
6. Bulk Create on the Print tab.
7. Page through the generated sheets.
8. Print.

1 — Importing your data

Under the canvas there is a panel called Imported data. Choose Import Excel and pick an .xlsx, .xls or .csv file. The first row is read as your column headings and everything below it as data. There is no mapping step: [Product] on the label matches the column called Product, and that is the whole rule.

There are no required columns. Whatever your sheet says is what you can use:

What gets read, and what does not

Cells are reduced to exactly what you would see on screen in Excel. A formula contributes its calculated result — never the formula itself. Dates come through as dd/mm/yyyy. Error cells such as #DIV/0! come through blank rather than printing an error on a shelf label.

If the headings are not on row 1

Exported files often start with a title or a blank line. The app looks for the first row with at least two filled cells and uses that. If it guesses wrong, change Header row in the toolbar and the file is re-read.

2 — Copies

Every row gets a Copies column, starting at 1. It is the only place quantity is decided. Change it to print more of one product than another:

That is 3 products and 10 labels. The totals at the top of the Data tab update as you type.

• Set every row to applies one number to all of them at once.
• Copies from column reads the quantity out of a column you already have — useful when your order file carries one.
• 0 copies skips a row without deleting it. The row dims but stays, so you can put it back.

3 — Placing fields on the label

Once data is loaded, every column appears in Available fields down the left of the Designer, with a sample value from the first row beside it.

• Click a field to add it to the selected element, or to make a new text element if nothing is selected.
• Drag a field onto the label to place it exactly where you drop it.
• Type [Product] by hand — this has always worked and still does.
• The ⋯ button offers formats: [Price|money] prints $12.95 from a raw 12.95.

Fixed text and data fields mix freely in one element. SKU: [SKU] prints SKU: NT001; the words stay, the field changes per row.

4 — Bulk Create

On the Print tab, Bulk Create checks everything, then builds the sheets. It refuses to run if:

• the design uses a column your spreadsheet does not have;
• a barcode value cannot be encoded in the chosen symbology;
• the label grid does not physically fit the page;
• there is no data, or every row is set to 0 copies.

Barcode problems name the row and the product, so you can find it in a nine-hundred-line spreadsheet:

Row 14 — Cardinal Tetra: "12345" is not a valid EAN13 value.
EAN-13 needs 12 digits (check digit added) or 13

An empty barcode value is a warning rather than an error. That label prints without a barcode — the software will not invent one.

5 — Bulk Preview

After Bulk Create you get the actual sheets, one at a time, with Previous and Next and a page number you can type into. Each sheet shows the real values, the real barcodes and the real layout.

Changing anything — the design, the data, the copies, the start position — clears the preview. You cannot look at one thing and print another.

6 — Printing

Choose the printer and press Print. Start at label position resumes a part-used sheet of label stock: count the used labels from the top left, starting at 0, and the run begins after them so nothing is wasted.

Templates and data are separate

A saved template holds the design only — label size, page setup, elements, fonts, colours, barcode settings and [Field] references. It never holds the imported rows. That is what lets you open one template every week and point it at a different file.

On the Templates tab you can open, rename, duplicate and delete. Saving over a template that already exists always asks first.

Extra columns are fine

Your spreadsheet can have forty columns while the label uses three. Unused columns stay in the table in case you want them later; the ones the design actually uses are marked in the header row.