Gen. Reference: Custom Bundle Ticket Layout

• Overview
  • What is a Custom Ticket Template?
  • Economy Custom
  • Beyond Economy Custom
• Specifications
  • Areas of a Ticket Traveler
  • Defining your Template
  • Submitting Specifications

Overview

What is a Custom Ticket Template?

In Bundle-Track, Ticket Templates define the layout and content of the Bundle-Tickets your system produces. Bundle-Track ships with a Standard Ticket Template, and allows for the use of a Custom Ticket Template with a different layout.

Economy Custom

To make Custom Ticket Templates available at minimal cost, we have developed a standardized process to enable you to develop your own Custom Ticket specifications using this document as your guide. Once your specifications are complete, we will charge a flat fee to produce and deliver the Custom Ticket Template to you.

You may also involve us in the process of developing your custom specifications, at Professional Service rates.

Beyond Economy Custom

To keep this process simple and economical, we have artificially constrained some aspects of the standard Custom Ticket Template. We expect that this standardized structure will meet the needs of most users. However, we may be able to accommodate requirements beyond the scope of the standard Custom Ticket Template. Custom pricing would apply.

Specifications

Areas of a Ticket Traveler

To enable us to communicate clearly about your specifications, let's establish a vocabulary by giving names to the elements involved.

Our Standard Ticket Template is designed for standard ticket paper stock having the following dimensions:

• Paper External Width: 8.5"
• Paper Internal Width: 7.5"
• Number of Columns: 3
• Column Width(s): all 2.5"
• Row Height: 0.75"

This paper is divided by perforations or sticker cuts into detachable segments 2 ½ inches wide and ¾ inches high. The paper is three segments wide, and continuous in length. Travelers printed on this paper may vary in length, depending on the number of Tickets and Sections. If you are going to use paper with different dimensions than the above, we will need you to provide us with those measurements.

 __________________________ External Width _________________________
|                                                                   |
|   |__ Column 1 Width _|__ Column 2 Width _|__ Column 3 Width _|   |
| O |                   |                   |                   | O |
|   |                   |         O         |                   |   |
| O |_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _| O |___
|   |                   |                   |                   |   |   |
| O |                   |                   |                   | O |  Row Height
|   |_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|   |___|
| O |                   |                   |                   | O |
|   |                   |         O         |                   |   |
| O |_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _| O |
|   |                                                           |   | 
    |______________________ Internal Width _____________________|  

Each Traveler consists of one or more Ticket Sections, each made up of four sub-areas: a Header, a Footer, a Spine, and Tickets (as illustrated below). Headers and Footers each take up a complete segment row (three horizontally adjacent segments). Between them, there are one or more segment rows, depending on the number of Tickets. In each of these rows, the left and right segments are used as detachable Tickets, and the inner segment forms part of the Spine that connects the Header to the Footer. Most paper stock has a ¼ inch hole punched in the center of the spine at regular intervals, making the middle ¼ inch of the spine an unreliable print area.

Defining your Template

In the Standard Custom Template, we use only one monospaced font (Courier), so the number of available character positions in each area is known exactly. When you define your Template, you will assign specific fields to specific character positions, and specify the field's justification (left/right/center alignment) in that space.

You may place multiple fields on the same line. When the content of a field exceeds the number of characters you have allocated for it, the remaining text will simply be truncated, so make sure that you allocate at least as many characters as your workers need to make sense of what they see.

Ticket paper stock often includes occasional hole-punches along the vertical centerline of the paper. To avoid these holes, our Templates define a ½ inch area along the centerline as unprintable space. This unprintable centerline affects Headers, Footers, and the Spine, but not Tickets.

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Headers

On standard ticket paper stock, Bundle-Track prints three lines of text in a Header. The unprintable centerline separates Headers into two parts - the Left Header and the Right Header - each offering 52 character positions per line of text.

You will specify the content of these two areas separately.

Left Header

When specifying character positions, you will use syntax like "HL3 10-25 R" (which indicates the position of the word "EXAMPLE" in the map above). This syntax has three parts:

• a prefix indicates the Traveler area and the line in that area (in this case, "HL" for Header Left, and "3" for line 3);
• a range of character numbers indicates the target positions on the specified line (in this case, characters 10 through 25);
• a justification code (L, R, or C for Left, Right, or Center) indicates the alignment within the character range.

For example, you might generate the following Left Header with the specifications below:

Area & Line #	Pos. Range	J	Field Name or TEXT
HL1	25-40	R	Lot Code
	42-52	L	TEXT Lot
HL2	25-40	R	Bundle Number
	42-52	L	TEXT Bundle
HL3	25-36	R	Bundle Quantity
	38-40	L	TEXT doz
	42-52	L	TEXT Units

Where you want to place fixed text rather than text provided by one of Bundle-Track's fields, instead of naming a field, write "TEXT" and then the actual text you want to print.

Right Header

The Right Header's area code is "HR".

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Tickets & Spines

On standard ticket paper stock, perforations/cuts and the unprintable centerline divide Ticket/Spine rows into four areas: Left Ticket, Left Spine, Right Spine, and Right Ticket.

Note that justification within the Spine areas is predetermined as illustrated above.

Tickets

On standard ticket paper stock, Ticket areas offer four lines of print, and 37 character positions per line.

Although Bundle-Track prints Tickets on alternate sides of the Spine, all Tickets will have the same layout, whether they are Left Tickets or Right Tickets. So you need only specify one Ticket Layout.

The area code for Tickets is "T".

Keep in mind that if you intend to include a bar-code on your Ticket, the entire second row (T2) is reserved for the bar-code. You may not move the bar-code to another row, and you may not include other fields on the bar-code row. However, if you do not include a bar-code on your Ticket, you may allocate character positions in the second row as you see fit.

Spines

On standard ticket paper stock, Spine areas offer four lines of print, and 15 character positions per line.

Unlike the other areas, where justification is up to you, justification in the Spine areas is predetermined: all fields in Left Spine areas are left justified and all fields in Right Spine areas are right justified. Although there are two Spine areas, and they are justified differently, they are identical in content. You specify only one Spine Layout. The area code for the Spine area is "S".

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Footers

On standard ticket paper stock, Footers are just like Headers: Bundle-Track prints three lines of text in a Footer. The unprintable centerline separates Footers into two parts - the Left Footer and the Right Footer - each offering 52 character positions per line of text.

You will specify the content of these two areas separately.

Left Footer

The Left Footer's area code is "FL".

Right Footer

The Right Footer's area code is "FR".

Submitting Specifications

Please type your custom Ticket Template specifications on your own paper, or print legibly into this form.

Remember to detail all four areas:

• Left Header (area code HL). 3 Lines by 52 characters.
• Right Header (area code HR). 3 Lines by 52 characters.
• Ticket (area code T). 4 Lines by 37 characters.
• Spine (area code S). 4 Lines by 15 characters. Spine area justification is predetermined, so you may omit justification codes for the Spine.
• Left Footer (area code FL). 3 Lines by 52 characters.
• Right Footer (area code FR). 3 Lines by 52 characters.

When your specification is ready, email it to us at CustomTicket@Bundle-Track.com or FAX it to us at 617-556-4005.

We welcome your comments at support@bundle-track.com.

If you would like our live assistance, you may hire us at our professional services rate.