# Using LaTeX with a label writer


I wanted to pretty print my labels on my (new) Dymo 400 label writer. All the
howtos I found were detailing how to use LaTeX to print a sheet of
labels. But I needed some LaTeX-foo to print only one. So /me to the
rescue...

My labels are 36mm X 89 mm (Dymo part #99012) after some trial and
error and four misprinted labels I came to the following LaTeX
code which fits the text on the labels:

    \documentclass{memoir}
    \setstocksize{36mm}{89mm} %% dymo 99012 paper
    \setlength{\headheight}{0mm}
    \setlength{\headsep}{-28mm}
    \setlength{\textwidth}{72mm} %% -17 mm
    \setlength{\textheight}{28mm} %% -8 mm
    \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-16mm}
    \setlength{\parindent}{0mm}

    \begin{document}
    ...
    \end{document}

For the actual text on the labels I use the following code (this should
be placed at the dots (...) in the code above.

    \sffamily
    \textbf{My title}

    \qquad The Author \\

    \qquad\textbf{Genre} \\

    ISBN: \textbf{9-785170-271955}\hfill2008

This LaTeX code is created by a little Perl script:

    #!/usr/bin/perl
    # labelfmt
    # format bib db so that we can print labels
    # gets standard sqlite text input:
    # 663|9785170271955|Wat 3a Warom (russisch)|B. Barhep|computer|1998|1221413368|

    use strict;
    use warnings;
    my $labelfile = "/tmp/label";

    $_ = <>;  # only read one label at the time

    my ($id, $i, $tit, $a, $g, $y) = split /\|/, $_;

    # format the isbn number a bit
    my @i = split //, $i;
    local $"="";
    $i = $i[0] . "-" . "@i[1..6]" . "-" . "@i[7..12]";

    open TEX, ">", $labelfile . ".tex"; # yes, unsafe
    select TEX;

    print <<'EOF';
    \documentclass{memoir}
    \setstocksize{36mm}{89mm} %% dymo 99012 paper
    \setlength{\headheight}{0mm}
    \setlength{\headsep}{-28mm}
    \setlength{\textwidth}{72mm} %% -6 mm
    \setlength{\textheight}{28mm} %% -6 mm
    \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-16mm}
    \setlength{\parindent}{0mm}

    \begin{document}
    \pagestyle{empty}
    \sffamily
    EOF

    printf "\\textbf{%.30s}\n\n", $tit;
    printf "\\qquad %.30s \\\\\n\n", $a;
    printf "\\qquad\\textbf{%.30s} \\\\\n\n", uc $g;
    printf "ISBN: \\textbf{%s}\\hfill%d\n", $i, $y;

    print '\end{document}', "\n";
    close TEX;

    # now we make the pdf - after we clean up, the mess
    if (system("pdflatex $labelfile") != 0) {
	warn "Er ging iets falikant verkeerd";
    } else {
	unlink $labelfile . ".log", $labelfile . ".aux";
    }

This will yield the following result

![Example Label](/images/2009/label.png)