The XML isn’t terribly pretty mostly because there are line feeds in there. Without the line feeds, I think it would be indented properly. Each Element tag has a String tag and an Attributes tag. It looks like every font attribute is listed whether you specifically set it or not. I’m also padding my text with spaces to line up columns. I could use multiple text boxes, but there is no grid control. For now, this works. The only downside to using one big textbox and space padding is that I have to use a fixed-width font – Courier New in this case. If I want to use a nicer font, I’ll have to go the multiple textbox route.

I have this form for data input and a button to print the label. The button kicks off the code below. I don’t need the mdyLabel variable any more because I’m not using that part of the object model. Instead of mdyLabel, I’m manipulating the XML file directly giving me more control.

Sub PrintBlendCalc()

End Sub

Instead of using the SetField method (like in the previous example), I call a new procedure called UpdateLabel file to create a new XML file. Then I open the file and print it.

Public Sub UpdateLabelFile(ByRef sFile As String)

End Sub

There are four elements in my XML file. The first label line is underlined, so that gets its own element. The second and third lines and a portion of the fourth line have the same attributes, so they’re grouped into one element. The portion of the fourth line that is underlined is in the third element. And all the rest of the text goes into the fourth element. The elements are set and the attributes are just the way I want them, so all that is left is to update the text.

I pass the array into a FormatLabelText function which extracts the data I want and pads the spaces so the columns line up. The FormatLabelText function is shown below.

I pass the sFile variable ByRef into UpdateLabelFile. The sFile variable is set and retains that value back in the calling procedure so the calling procedure knows which file to open and print.

The FormatLabelText function takes the array and whichever row we’re interested in formatting. It starts by defining three arrays: vaBuffer defines how much padding for each of the five columns; vaAlignLeft defines if the columns are aligned right or left; and vaFormat defines the number format for each of the five column (@ is the format for general text).

Public Function FormatLabelText(ByRef vaData As Variant, ByVal lIndex As Long) As String

For j = LBound(vaData, 2) To UBound(vaData, 2)
sData = Format(vaData(lIndex, j), vaFormat(j - 1))
If Len(sData) = 0 Then
sData = Space(vaBuffer(j - 1))
ElseIf Len(sData) > vaBuffer(j - 1) Then
sData = Left$(sData, vaBuffer(j - 1) - 1) & Chr$(133)
ElseIf Len(sData) < vaBuffer(j - 1) Then If vaAlignLeft(j - 1) Then sData = sData & Space(vaBuffer(j - 1) - Len(sData)) Else sData = Space(vaBuffer(j - 1) - Len(sData)) & sData End If End If sReturn = sReturn & sData Next j FormatLabelText = sReturn & vbNewLine End Function

First the data is formatted using the Format function and the vaFormat array. Next, the big If..ElseIf..EndIf block determines how to pad the data with spaces.

• If the data is empty (Len = 0) then write spaces for the whole buffer.
• If the data length is greater than the buffer, truncate it and add an ellipse to the end.
• If the data length is less than the buffer, add spaces to the end (or the beginning if it's aligned right) to fill it out.

It would be nice (but hard) to create a more general purpose function that created a label from a range. But this works for now.