drawing a graphic of a page layout from a calculation

[MarkFuller]

Kind of a long question, hope this is the best catagory to post under.

I am working on a label printing estimating /quotation database solution. Part of the solution involves calculating how many labels will fit on a sheet and drawing a simple sketch of the label layout.

example: sheet size 8"x12", label size 3"x4" (These sizes will chage with each new quotation.)

For the sake of this example I will say there is no space between labels and we can print right to the edge of the sheet.

First we determine how to orient the label on the sheet to get the best yield.

If we orient the 3" side of the label to come out of the 12" edge of the sheet we can fit 4 labels across and the 4" side comes out twice from the 8" giving us a total of 8 label per sheet.

This gives us the best yield VS. the opposite of orienting the 3" side of the label along the 8" sheet etc. ( 6 labels per sheet)

That part is pretty easy. But once those calculations are done I would like to generate a small scale drawing of the labels as they would appear on the sheet. This drawing will be included in the printed quotation report.

It should show the label layout and orientation on the sheet.

The drawing should show the 8"x12" sheet with a smaller grid of 3" x 4" labels. The proportions of the drawing should be somewhat accurate. So if it were a 1" x 1" label it would look correct compared to a 1" x 3" label.

I am stumped as to how to approach generating this small sketch based on the yield calculation and including it into the printed quote.

Any ideas or approaches would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Mark

ps. I could not seem to update the SW version, but I am using FM 9 Advanced.

Edited March 14, 2008 by Guest

[Fitch]

Using the web viewer might be one way to accomplish it. My CSS skillz are not shall we say über, however take a look at the attached file to get the idea.

DataURL.zip

[MarkFuller]

Tom,

Thanks for that demo file, my css is pretty bad, but with a little brush up I think I can figure it out.

Thanks again!

Mark