Label Printer

The Label Printer designs and prints the labels that keep parts identifiable through the shop: part name, dimensions, stock, grain, QR codes and barcodes. It is a WYSIWYG designer - you lay elements out on a real-size label and print from your browser.

Open it from the Cabybara toolbar or menu ("Print Labels"), or from a nesting result (see Where the parts come from).

The window

• Left - the element list, front-most at the top. Drag to reorder, toggle the eye to hide, or delete.
• Center - the label canvas, zoomed to fit the panel (the current zoom is shown as a scale readout, so it is not printed size), with optional snapping (1 / 2 / 5 / 10 percent) and a grid. Drag elements to move, use the eight handles to resize, arrow keys to nudge. Alignment guides appear as you drag.
• Right - the properties of the selected element.
• Top - the preset picker, label size in mm, orientation, undo and redo.

Undo (Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y) covers element edits only - label size, grid and page setup changes are not undoable.

Presets

Four presets ship with the plugin:

New, Dup, Del and Save manage your own presets; built-ins cannot be deleted but Reset restores a modified built-in to its shipped state. An orange dot marks unsaved changes - switching presets warns you, but closing the window does not, so save before you close.

Presets are stored per computer, not per model, and are shared by every entry point.

Elements

Text - content, font size, bold, family, alignment, color, rotation (0/90/180/270) and overflow (clip or shrink to fit).

QR code - content, foreground color, and error correction (L/M/Q/H). The level is a preference, not a guarantee: if the content will not fit, the encoder steps down to a lower level automatically, and content beyond QR capacity prints as "TOO LONG".

Barcode - Code 128, optionally with the text underneath. Only standard ASCII encodes; anything else prints as "UNSUPPORTED CHARACTERS". Warnings appear under the content box while you design.

Line - a horizontal or vertical divider, with color and width.

Rectangle - a frame, with border color, width and optional fill.

Every element is positioned and sized in percent of the label, so positions survive a change of label size - but font sizes and line widths are absolute, so shrinking a finished design can clip its text. QR codes and barcodes show as placeholder icons on the canvas - use Preview to see the real codes.

Content: tokens and expressions

Content fields accept tokens in braces, replaced per part:

{name} {type} {cabinet} {path} {length} {width} {thickness} {dims} {stock} {material} {area} {grain} {panel_face} {note} {pattern} {lighting} {n} {total} {label} {sheet_name} {sheet_index} {date} {project}

Sheet-type presets get their own set: {sheet_name} {sheet_index} (and its alias {sn}) {sheet_name_index} {sheet_size} {sheet_w} {sheet_h} {part_count} {placement_count} {efficiency} {total_area_m2} {waste_m2} {total_sheets} {date} {project}.

Formats are available as suffixes: {length:int}, {stock:upper}, {area:2f}. A token with no value prints nothing.

Advanced mode evaluates a small Ruby expression instead, with each field available by name - for example length.to_i > 600 ? "WIDE" : "STD". Expressions are sandboxed and never fail the print: a broken one prints an error on the label instead - #ERR for a runtime problem such as a misspelled field name (the most common case), or #ERR:SYNTAX, #ERR:UNSAFE and #ERR:TOO_LONG.

{note}, {pattern} and {lighting} come from the Panel Notes tool and print blank unless those panels were tagged.

Where the parts come from

The designer is identical in all three cases; only the data differs.

From the toolbar - labels the panels currently selected in the model (selecting a cabinet labels its panels). Data is read live, so it reflects the model right now. Sheet tokens and {label} are empty, and sheet headers are unavailable. Changing the selection does not update an open window - reopen it from the toolbar.

From a nesting sheet ("Labels" on a sheet card) - labels that sheet's parts in placement order, with {n} counting within the sheet, plus the sheet tokens and {label}. Because sheet data is present, a sheet-header preset is selected automatically and prints one header page; set the Sheet label dropdown to "None (parts only)" if you only want the part labels.

From "Print All Labels" in nesting - labels every part on every sheet, numbered across the whole run, with unplaced parts included at the end. A sheet-header preset prints one header before each sheet's labels.

Nesting-sourced data is the snapshot taken when you nested: edits made to panels afterwards appear only after re-nesting.

There is no filtering or copies control - every collected part gets exactly one label, in collection order.

Printing

Preview opens the labels in your browser; Print does the same and opens the print dialog. With no parts loaded, both ask first and then show a single sample label so you can judge a design. Single mode puts one label per page sized exactly to the label; Grid mode lays out columns x rows on A4, Letter, A3 or a custom page, with margin and gap (the Auto button fills the page). An optional thin border marks the cutting line.

For accurate labels, set the browser's print scale to 100% and turn off its headers and footers.