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In this example, we are creating a new report and testing the
extendibility of EZ Directory Maker. For a yacht club, they want to
show the members and their boats. Usually our reports contain one
photo per group or individual.
EZ Directory Maker can be used as a stand-alone product to generate
professional photo-directories, OR a utility, workhorse, to create a
subsection of an already existing directory. In either case, the
first step is getting the data into EZ Directory Maker.
Export your text data:
Most common to existing software applications is an ability to export
your data into "Comma Separated Values" (CSV).
Microsoft's Excel software (spreadsheet) can use this format as one of
many, and sometimes other software applications refer to exporting in an
"Excel" format. Another common format to export is "Text",
which is usually prompted by a dialog of how to separate data into
"fields" - the pieces of data like, Last Name, First Name, Street, etc.
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 Import your text data:
In EZ Directory Maker, an Import Wizard shows you what data it has found
in the export file (created above). It tries to match field names with
those it understands. You can tell it what field names go with what
data as you see a preview of the data.
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Import your photo/image data:
This is as simple as identifying a directory on your hard-drive or CD.
EZ Directory Maker will then take every image in that directory and compare
the file-name to the names in the text-database (imported above). For
example, "Last-First-Member.jpg", is a unique image name that
contains all the information needed to import the image to correct owner.
This could literally be "McFarland-Scott-Member.jpg" .
Normally we would import photos for families or individuals and after
this step we would simply run a report and be done, using one
photo per group. For a yacht club, they want to show the members AND their
boats.
This is where we can be creative. The "Member" in photo name
identifies a "member type" used in EZ Directory Maker. This photo
would naturally be a picture of the owners. We could also put the word
"Boat" in place of owner as in, "Last-First-Boat.jpg", and the
program would understand this to be a new member under Last and First, for
example, "McFarland-Scott-Boat.jpg".
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Run a Report:
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Now we can run a custom report that places the faces and boats with the
names and other contact information. We're using a custom version of
our standard report that collates the data for printing on a landscaped
8.5"(h) x 11"(w) sized stock, front and back. This is a key feature of
EZ Directory Maker, making booklets (or inserts for booklets): data is
not simply printed from A to Z, but needs to be re-ordered to account for
front and back sided pages on the final cut/stapled/bound version, a folded
sheet, at 8.5"(h) x 5.5"(w) .
Below, is an example of a standard report and the proposed yacht-club
report: (Fictitious identities have been used or data has been intentionally blurred to protect
privacy. Graphic alteration to sharpen imagery for intentional data
acquisition is a federal offense).
Some Examples ...
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Standard Report |
Proposed Yacht Club Report |
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