Coreldraw print merge

[Roger McDowell]

I haven't been on here for a long time but i'm hoping someone may be able to help me using the print merge function on coreldraw. I have corelx7 and have watched numerous youtube tutorials on print merge but it never seems to work as advertised. Trying to print to my old uls v460. Anyone have any suggestions on this. Talked to the good people at uls but i have not spoken to anyone using the print merge successfully. Most, if they have used it at all gave up and entered data manualy. I have 800 plates to engrave help!!!

[Kev Williams]

been using corel for 20 years and I can't figure out the print merge, gave up after finding Gravostyle made it mind-numbingly easy... ;)

There IS a way to accomplish your goal, relatively easy if the names are all on one line, a bit more complicated but do-able if on two lines-

First thing is, plan on doing the names one column at a time. You can do as many plates as you want as long as you don't go past Corel's limits..
for an example, lets say 24 plates down, plates will be 1 x 3". So, make a 1x3 plate, then copy it vertically 23 times...
next, type an "A" at the (predetermined) correct height, and center it in the top plate. (I'm using 18pt Arial Bold for this example)
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then snap a guideline at the baseline of the "A"...
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--now, copy the guideline down 23 times, THEN,
type "A" [return] until you have 24 A's as shown. (you only have to do this once :) )
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Now -- select the 24 A's, then click on the "shape" tool (right under the arrow tool)
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grab the handle and start pulling down the text, get the bottom A as close to the bottom guideline as possible--
(chances are it won't cooperate :) )
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you need to click on the Text tab an open the Paragraph Formatting menu-
note I have the line spacing circled, it's currently 357.034%--
From here just keep raising the percentage manually until the lower A
aligns with the guideline... I found 358.05% was about perfect--

SO, now we have a perfect setup to run 24 names down, and I save the job-
Then, I backspace all the A's out except the first one.

From this point, you just need your names listed vertically in a text doc, excel or word doc.
Copy the first 24 names (I used an old variable notepad list) to the clipboard,
highlight the lonely A on top, then click the paste button--
Voila, the names replace the A perfectly, and I have 24 plates ready to go...
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This will work with 2 line text, just takes some time to find out how many line spaces will get it close to start with, then go from there...

[Darren Wilson]

Check on YT, there are some easy to follow tutorials on there. Most are for older version of CD but worked a treat on X7. Will PM a link if I bookmarked it.

[Darren Wilson]

https://youtu.be/u7A6pAML5OY

[Mike Null]

I use print merge almost daily. It works perfectly.
Roy Brewer has done dozens of useful CorelDraw tutorials. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbZpC0JXXcs

The key is following step by step. If you leave out a step it won't work.

[Roger McDowell]

Thanks for all the helpful info guys. I've watched tons of YT videos but I'll check out your recommendations. It's simple spreadsheet in Excel but it's about 400 rows long and I'm trying to pull in four lines of text to each tag. I actually got the PM to work but in the page setup in the driver for my ULS V460 it has an option to locate the page on the engraver workspace. I select "top left" and the one page moves to top left. Then I tell it I want 9 columns wide and it the 9 columns centered horizontally. That's hard enough to work with but then when I sent the file to the laser set to raster the text and cut the outline the laser shows the file but 0 speed and 0 power. I've talked with the guys at ULS but without much success. Most are not very familiar with the PM function or tried it and gave up.

[Roger McDowell]

Ken,

Will Gravostyle work with ULS machines?

[Kev Williams]

Gravostyle will work with any machine if you're willing to export-as-DXF the files it creates, just import into Corel or whatever, put the plates (or?) in place and go- I do this at LEAST 5 times a day. The only catch is text becomes curves, but that's not an issue as long as you proof all text in GS before exporting--

[mike klein]

I have never used print merge but have some large name tag jobs to do so thought I would give it a try. I'm trying to engrave/cut name tags, got it it all setup in Corel Draw and the engrave perfectly, but when it comes to cutting the tags the tags get cut only on the top side and left side, the right side and bottom side of the tag will not cut.

[Julie Ramsay]

Gravostyle will work with any machine if you're willing to export-as-DXF the files it creates, just import into Corel or whatever, put the plates (or?) in place and go- I do this at LEAST 5 times a day. The only catch is text becomes curves, but that's not an issue as long as you proof all text in GS before exporting--

This is how I have been doing it as well in grovostyle... Set it up with the matrix and it just feeds in. Just have to make sure you close the graphics... and then pdf.

[Julie Ramsay]

Is this how you do it with Gravostyle?