printing multiple fields of one record in a label-layout

[musixer]

Hi,

I want to print about 200 fields within one data record on a label-layout, which has 78 labels on a letter-papersize. Only fields containing data shall be printed. How can I avoid empty fields to occur on my printout-sheet?

thanks a lot

Axel, Germany

[Ender]

Can you enlighten us a bit as to what these fields are that they would need to be printed in such a format? It seems like a better structure could be found.

[Lee Smith]

Hi musixer, and Welcome to the Forum.

It is not clear as to what you really are trying to do. With that many fields, are they all in the same record, or is it 200 separate records with one field each.

Have you tried the Slide/Printing options for the field(s).

Lee

[musixer]

it is within a program for the ward-round in a hospital (intensive care unit). for each patient on each day a record is set, containing a lot of fields to prescribe certain medicine. I have 27 line to prescribe different medicines given intravenous. in every line I can choose 12 different times where this certain medicine is to be given (2am, 4 am, 6 am an so on...). Now I want to print labels containing the name of the patient, the date of today and the medicine name with the time. (example: I prescribe aspirine at 8 am, 4 pm an 24 pm, I have to print 3 labels for this medicine-line). At the end I want to print all these labels on a letter-size sheet with 78 small labels to enable the nurses to stick them on the syringes. It is easy, if I have a label-printer, but I have only a printer containing letter-format. So I buildt 27 * 12 data fields each for a medicine line and a different application-time. Most of these fields are empty, because in a line there no prescribed medicine or it is only prescribed three times a day (and not 12 times as it would be possible). Of course I don't want to print these empty fields on my labels.

[Ender]

You should change to a relational structure to record the medicines and the times.

With such a structure, each record could be one time for one medication. Then you'd just print all the labels for a particular medication or for a particular patient at once (depending on the workflow).

The exact structure for this depends on all the details that might need to be remembered and how your business works. It's hard to suggest something specific without knowing those details.

In any case, I hope you're open to such a change as it has a number of advantages, in addition to this current need. A relational structure is more efficient for organizing, retrieving, and entering data, is much easier to view the data in different ways (for example, you could pull up a list of all the medications to be given at a certain time, or you could get totals of medications used for inventory purposes), and is easier to design reports for.

[musixer]

Thank you very much for your comment. My database is in a relational structure4 allready. There are 10 relational linked files containing i.e. medicines, patient data, disease data and so on. I also tried to develop a relational linked file just to contain all the data of those prescription-fields that are not empty, but it is very a complicated and workup-flow hindering process to copy all data containing fields of all selected records into one file and then do a printout in a label-driven layout. It must exist an easier way. :

[comment]

I agree with Ender that a true relational structure would be more appropriate here. And I agree with you that it is not a simple undertaking. But there's a good model for this that you could adopt, because basically what you have is a calendar.

If you take a standard week view of calendar, and replace the 7 columns for days of the week with 12 columns for times, and use 27 rows for the medications - I believe you will get the same grid that you have now. With the advantage that only actual 'events' are recorded - so that when you print from the Events table, there are no dummy records to skip.

You can find a discussion of this model and some examples here.

Alternatively, as a hack, you could use repeating fields to enter your data, and some sort of calculation field, also repeating, to produce a label if data has been entered in a corresponding repetition. Then you could import the calculated labels into a printing table, splitting them into separate records during the import.