Create a Custom Tag

Printing a price tag just requires you to create a fillable PDF form. You can use any PDF editing software to create a PDF form. Note this is different than a PDF viewer which are widely available for free. Most PDF editors such as Foxit PDF editor, Nitro PDF, or Adobe Acrobat Editor are paid products and are very high quality. Some free options include Libre Writer and PDFill, which we will cover in this article.

Using PDFill

PDFill is a great free tool to create custom tags. PDFill can be downloaded here. The free version includes all the features you need to create a tag. Once installed, create a new tag by clicking File > New Project with Blank Page

You will then see the page setup dialog where you can specify the size of your tag. Letter is selected by default, but if you want to create a custom size, choose Custom from the PDF Page Size dropdown, then enter the width and height, and click OK.

Once the new document is created, select the Text Form button from the toolbox and click and drag on the document to create the new text field.

Once the field has been created, the field properties dialog will show. If you check the Show PDF Form Field’s Name checkbox, each field will be easily identifiable while editing the tag. This will not show on the final printed tags. The Field Name (1) field MUST be one of the following:

item_title, item_description, item_qty, item_sku, item_builder, item_price, item_barcode

Use the Font Properties (2) section to customize the field font size, color, style etc. Click on the Options tab at the top to view more options such as text alignment and the ability to enable Multiple line text which you will probably want to do for the description field.

Click OK to finish adding the field. You can move and resize the field. Resize by selecting the field and dragging the white dots on the border. You can move the field by dragging the border or by using your arrow keys.

Once finished, you should have a tag that looks something like this:

You may want to add more text fields as labels such as a dollar sign for the price or a “Qty” label for the qty field. Don’t worry about the background being pink, this will not show on the printed tag.

Once all your desired fields have been added to the tag, you are ready to export it as a PDF file. Click File > Save the edited PDF as (or click the blue PDF button on the main toolbar) to save your tag.

The Export options dialog will display. Click the Save PDF as … button to save the PDF.

You will then need to enter a name and a location to save your tag. Choose a name of your choice for your tag and place the new pdf in C:\Users\<username_here>\Documents\ordertrac\tags

You will also want to click File > Save project for later editing to save the project in case you want to modify the tag later without having to start over from scratch.

Using Libre Writer

Libre Office can be downloaded from their official website. Libre Office is a free open source alternative to Microsoft Office, and includes a word processor (Writer), a spreadsheet (Calc), and other office applications. The version used in this article is 6.2.8, which is the latest stable version at this time. Once installed, we will open Libre Writer by clicking Start > Libre Office > Writer.

Create Custom Tag

Once you have Writer open, the first step will be to verify the form editor toolbar is visible. To enable the Form Editor toolbar, select View > Toolbars > and verify the Form Controls option is selected. This will display the Form Control toolbar if it is not already shown.

Next, you will want to set up your page settings. If your tag is a full size sheet of paper, you can skip this step. However, if your tag is smaller, select the Page Settings icon on the right side of the screen to display the page settings options. Set the page width and height to the desired size.

Now we are ready to add fields. Watch the following clip to see how to add text fields to the tag. Select the Edit Mode icon in the top right of the Form Control toolbar, then select the Text Box option to add a text box. Drag the desired text box size onto the tag. Double click the newly created field to edit the field properties. Set the field name to one of the following:

item_title, item_description, item_qty, item_sku, item_builder, item_price, item_barcode

OrderTrac will replace the entire contents of each field with data from OrderTrac. So if you would like for there to be a label before a field, such as Price: $123, you cannot enter Price: in the price field, as it will get overwritten with the price. You will need to add a separate text field for the price label. You can either use a Textbox field or the Label field (the icon that looks like a price tag) for this.

Once all fields have been added to your tag with the desired formatting and the correct names set, you are ready to export the tag as a PDF file. Click File > Export As > Export as PDF… to display the export options dialog.

Select the following options. Verify Create PDF form is checked, and verify Archive PDF/A-1a is not checked, and click Export. Choose a name for your tag and place the new pdf in C:\Users\<username_here>\Documents\ordertrac\tags

Adding a barcode to your tag

To add a barcode to your tag, just select a barcode font for the item_barcode textbox. You can download the Code39 font or the Code 128 font for your barcode. Once downloaded, open the downloaded Zip file and double click the contained .ttf font file. This will show you a preview of the font, with a Install button at the top. Click Install to install the font onto your computer. You may now need to close your pdf editing program (Libre Writer, PDFill, etc) and restart in order for the new font to be available.

Printing a tag in OrderTrac

Now that the tag template has been created, open OrderTrac, and on the Items tab, right click an item and select Print Tag.

The print tag form will show. Select the tag template you just created. (Note, tag must be in C:\Users\<username_here>\Documents\ordertrac\tags in order to show in the dropdown)

One all fields are set how you want them, click View to generate a tag. The tag should open in your default PDF viewer. You can print the tag using the print functionality in the PDF viewing software.