Hello all,
In a nutshell I currently have an Epilog Fibermark laser engraver and have been using Avery Design Pro 5 and 5.5 to communicate with it to engrave serial numbers on aluminum parts. For 3 years I was able to freely design templates for my parts, but recently the software has stopped allowing me to create new templates.
I contacted Epilog and they strongly recommend using CorelDraw to communicate with the engraver, so I got a trial and have begun to test it out and love it. The problem I am running into at the moment is I need to be able to add a specific serial number to my parts, I need the value to increase 1 for every part I print on and I need it to save what serial number I was at at the end of my printing session so I can pickup where I left off the next time I need to print.
Example:
Day 1 - I print 400 copies of <part x> and my serial numbers count from 120345 - 120744, I can then hit save and close the program.
Day 2 - I open the <part x> file and print 250 copies and my serial numbers then start where left off on day 1 and count 120745 - 120994, once again I can save and close.
Does anybody know how probable it is to get this program to do that for me, or if there is another program that can do something similar? My engraving is very basic, its 2 rows of arched text with 1 row of linear text (the serial number) at the bottom to make kind of a circle. Any help would be greatly appreciated and if pictures are of any help I can see what I can do.
Thanks in advance!
This could in principle be done by a macro -- assuming that you have the full retail version of CorelDraw because some of the special versions such as Home and Student do not include the VBA licence which is needed to run macros.
What do you want to do with the serial number? Does it appear in the design, or is it just used to save the file?
Hello Rhnny; Like Harry said a macro may be the way to go, and a good place to look is John's or Jeff's web sites. I use macros every day and some are Free some you have to buy, but if it saves you time they are NICE John/s site ( http://www.gdgmacros.com ) Jeff's site ( http://macromonster.com ). They come to the forum here often.Good Luck, George
I attached a picture of what one of my engraving files currently look like, and the serial number does appear as part of the design. The design is actually a part number, description and serial number. As of now I have the 30 day trial of CorelDRAW Suite which I believe is the full version for 30 days, if I can in fact get this program to work I will be purchasing the software.
Yes, that makes sense.
I think you will probably find an existing macro on one of the above sites, but it would not be difficult to create if you cannot find one there.
Macros will run fine in an unexpired trial version.
I did browse the two sites quickly earlier, I didn't seem to find anything that looked perfect for my application, but I only searched for a couple key words. I may try getting a hold of the two guys in charge of the macros and see if they know of anything off hand.