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Mike a

Drone Bee
Joined
Feb 13, 2010
Messages
1,785
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3
Location
Hampshire
Hive Type
Langstroth
Number of Hives
Between 17-20
I am trying to design a new label for my 2010 honey but I'm struggling to put the text on and resize the picture to fit my jars. I've tried adding text using LPView, open office, microsoft word and paint.net but each time the text either blurs badly or pixelates very badly.

If I resize my pictures first then try to add the text I find font size 8 is to large to fit my name and address. Any suggestions please or help on how I can add the font and size of text without it blurring?

Thanks in advance:cheers2:
 
Hi Mike, Is there a printing option in Microsoft word where you can choose low quality, medium quality and high quality?
Try setting it to high quality.
 
Hi Mike, Is there a printing option in Microsoft word where you can choose low quality, medium quality and high quality?
Try setting it to high quality.

Your right, I ran a batch of my old style labels on medium quality setting and had to use them for friends and family as they looked poor. The other day I spent lots of money buying a new colour laser printer and thought I need a new clean fresh looking label I can put on this years jars but I am trying to get the picture to look really nice before I try and print it. I think its because I'm using cheap software compared to what a graphic designer would use and resizing the picture once the text is added is messing it up.

:banghead:
 
I use M$ publisher as this allows you to create both image boxes and text boxes and place them where you want them, each one having it's own properties. The label function works well so you work on one 'page' and it prints as many as you can to an A4 page.

Mike.
 
Mike a, what printer did you buy,and what software are you running.

About 10 years ago I had a black and white laser printer that was amazing.

As its time for a new printer I am thinking of chucking the inkjet and going back down the laser route with colour myself.
 
By turning the text into a graphic you will undermine its clarity if resizing. If using Word suggest inserting the text as a text box, and forcing what size size you need by typing the desired number (6, 7 whatever) into the font size box.
 
Mike a, what printer did you buy,and what software are you running.

About 10 years ago I had a black and white laser printer that was amazing.

As its time for a new printer I am thinking of chucking the inkjet and going back down the laser route with colour myself.

Microsoft Publisher, if you go into the templates there are a number of differant sized labels you can use. The good thing is you work on one label and it prints out that label as many as you want, unlike word where you have to copy and paste.

Colour Laser is the way to go and they are a good price, just make sure the replacement toners are cheap as well. Also, jar label must be water proof to be legal.

Mike.
 
Thank you for the replies, I will have another play and see if I can create and insert a text box as suggested. All the replies have been very helpful and I now understand why I've been having problems.

Mike a, what printer did you buy,and what software are you running.

I bought the [ame="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001A70IY0/ref=oss_product"]Samsung CLP-315 Colour Laser Printer[/ame] from amazon for £115 and change. Excellent quality printing although the labels won't be waterproof as mentioned above (oh-hum one more thing for TS to slap me with). I also bought a pack of labels from staples (J8165 - L7165) as they looked the right size in the shop but they wont fit a 1lb jar without being trimmed a little but hopeful they will be ok on 12oz hex jars which I hope to get on my birthday next week.

As for software
I've tried
lpview - ms word - openoffice - paint and paint.net (upgraded version) - just downloaded "The Gimp" not not had a chance to play with it yet and I'll try publisher as recommend if I need to.
 
Hi Mike, for what it's worth, I had a similar problem a while ago producing sharp print on a club membership card.

I used Inkscape (vector graphics editor) exporting a 300dpi .png file and importing it into an PpenOffice Write document and found that the lettering just didn't transfer well at all.

The strategy I adopted was to us produce all the lettering in the write document and import the graphic as an underlay (text plonked on top). I appreciate that this could make the positioning a bit of a problem and so is unlikely to be a best solution.

Scribus (Open Desktop Publishing) for Windows/Mac/Linux may be of use - no real experience.

imagemagick is good for scaling graphics and an awful lot besides.

In Linux:
convert -resize 20% inputpic.png outputpic.png

Not sure of windows syntax, but imagemagic is cross platform and free. Pretty much a standard component in Linux.

Inkscape is very powerful, but does have a steep learning curve.
 
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