Create Ingredients Lists on Labels by Adding Text from a File

Thank you for joining us today on this video demonstration on how to connect to a text file. Today I will show you how to add data to your label from a text file.

Adding data from a text file is very useful for companies in the food or consumer goods industry because it allows you to add a paragraph of information such as an ingredients list. This video we will walk through a sample text file and importing into CODESOFT Enterprise. This feature is only available in CODESOFT Enterprise and LABELVIEW Gold editions.

Your first step in this process is to verify where the text files are located. That’s by going to Tools > Configuration > Default Folders, verify that our data text files are located where we want them. For this demonstration I will be using a sample of Apple Pie Ingredients list. Verifying where this is and click OK.

Now what I’m going to do is go to the data sources and right click advanced and choose Add. We’re going to change this from local to a file. This is the default directory where my text files are. Choose Apple Pie and click Open. You can see the ingredients are listed here and click OK.

Now what I’m going to do is drop this onto the label as text. As you can see here, this is just one line of information. What we want to do is make this more into a paragraph. So what I’m going to do is right click on the outline box and go to Properties. We’re going to choose the Paragraph option and turn on Word Wrap. Click OK. Now we can condense this into more of a paragraph format. Once that's done we move this over and make it neater.

Next step we're going to do is change the maximum amount of characters for output. On the right side here under variable name, were going to double click and choose Output. The maximum amount of characters right now is 100. We’re going to increase that to 300. Click OK. Now we’ll see more information here.

One key enhancement that was added to the 2015 versions of CODESOFT and LABELVIEW is a shortcut button that allows you to open the text document while still in LABELVIEW or CODESOFT, make changes and save. This is done by double clicking the variable name and clicking Edit File. Here I’m going to add the word ‘the’ in front of the text. File, and save. Close the text path; hit OK. Now you can see the change made on the label.

Now I’m going to open that back up and get rid of it. Highlight the word ‘the’, delete it, file, save, close, click OK. It goes back to normal. And remember adding data from a text file is only available in CODESOFT Enterprise and LABELVIEW Gold editions. Download a free demo to try this feature out for yourself. Thanks for watching!