Variables how-to needed
Hello All, I'm looking for some "for dummies" information about using variables. I tried looking for it in the wiki, but only found this "Internals" page that's a bit too advantaged to me: http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Inside_ConTeXt#Using_variables I'm obviously missing something important, so I'd love to see a few more examples of variables and variable input files... What I want is price tags with the item name in Finnish and English/Swedish and then the price. These are placed on a small page and those small pages are then fit onto one A4 by imposition. Like this: Pieni nyörihaarukka, koivua %variable 1,v-descr-fi {\em Small lucet, beech} %variable 2, v-descr-en 6 eur %variable 3, v-price1 Made in xxx %variable 4, v-origin I can do the imposition, that is not a problem - and it works a lot better than a table, so no tables this way... . My data is in a list that can be converted to csv (although it'll then have a bunch of quotes to be removed), the list format is just like above: Item in Finnish, Item in English, price, country of origin. So the main problem is database/mailmerge/variablerelated: How do I (or should I) use variables to fetch this information from a separate spreadsheet type file, i.e. my price list? (IF this was MS Word or OpenOffice, it would be called Mail Merge, but in OO it sucks a bit; and I think the operation itself should be easy if I just figure out how to do it... Thank you, Mari
On 25-7-2012 06:50, Mari Voipio wrote:
Hello All,
I'm looking for some "for dummies" information about using variables. I tried looking for it in the wiki, but only found this "Internals" page that's a bit too advantaged to me: http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Inside_ConTeXt#Using_variables I'm obviously missing something important, so I'd love to see a few more examples of variables and variable input files...
\setvariables [whatever] [name:first={product a}, price:first={123,45}, name:second={product b}, price:second={0.67}] \starttext You can order \getvariable {whatever} {name:first} but only if you're willing to pay the price of \getvariable {whatever} {price:first} Euros. But why not go for the much cheaper \getvariable {whatever} {name:second} that only costs you \getvariable {whatever} {price:second} Euros! \stoptext Something like that? ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------
On Jul 25, 2012, at 12:50 AM, Mari Voipio wrote:
Hello All,
I'm looking for some "for dummies" information about using variables. I tried looking for it in the wiki, but only found this "Internals" page that's a bit too advantaged to me: http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Inside_ConTeXt#Using_variables I'm obviously missing something important, so I'd love to see a few more examples of variables and variable input files...
What I want is price tags with the item name in Finnish and English/Swedish and then the price. These are placed on a small page and those small pages are then fit onto one A4 by imposition.
Like this:
Pieni nyörihaarukka, koivua %variable 1,v-descr-fi {\em Small lucet, beech} %variable 2, v-descr-en
6 eur %variable 3, v-price1
Made in xxx %variable 4, v-origin
I can do the imposition, that is not a problem - and it works a lot better than a table, so no tables this way... . My data is in a list that can be converted to csv (although it'll then have a bunch of quotes to be removed), the list format is just like above: Item in Finnish, Item in English, price, country of origin.
So the main problem is database/mailmerge/variablerelated: How do I (or should I) use variables to fetch this information from a separate spreadsheet type file, i.e. my price list?
(IF this was MS Word or OpenOffice, it would be called Mail Merge, but in OO it sucks a bit; and I think the operation itself should be easy if I just figure out how to do it...
Does this give you the sort of thing you want? Sorry it's so kludgy (hey, \relax ;-). There is an example of an address label in Mojca's http://dl.contextgarden.net/myway/csv.pdf but it threw an error in the current beta (I will write about that on a separate thread). So I made the following (stupid) workaround: \usemodule[database] %\defineseparatedlist % [PriceTag] % [separator={:},command=\MyTag] \defineseparatedlist [PriceTag] [separator={:}, first=\MyTag, last=\blank, left=, right=\relax] % a hack, because command=\MyTag wasn't working in MKIV \unexpanded\def\MyTag#1\relax#2\relax#3\relax#4\relax{ % ditto \framed [align={flushleft,lohi}, width=6cm, height=3.2cm]{#1\crlf#2\crlf\crlf#3\crlf\crlf Made in #4}} \starttext \startPriceTag Finnish thing:English name:2.15 eur:Finland Pieni nyörihaarukka, koivua:Small lucet, beech:6 eur:xxx \stopPriceTag % or process the file %\processdatabasefile[PriceTag][prices.txt] \stoptext ________________________________ This e-mail message (including any attachments) is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message (including any attachments) is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please contact the sender by reply e-mail message and destroy all copies of the original message (including attachments).
participants (3)
-
Hans Hagen -
Mari Voipio -
Rogers, Michael K