We’ve been updating some of our labels so that they work in Specify 7 but have found an issue in getting reports/pages to “print” multiple times - i.e. for our duplicate material, we need 1 label per duplicate, but by default specify only prints 1 label per record in the query it uses. The issue is that the field that’s used to define how many duplicates is just an integer, so if there are 5 duplicated, there’s just a value of 5, but not 5 records, if that makes sense?
In Specify 6 this works because the repeats field is working but it doesn’t seem to be carrying across to Specify 7 - applying the Spreport field for repeatcount and repeatfield hasn’t been working so far - is there a specific way that this needs to be set up in order to get repeat generations based on an integer/field in Specify 7?
Hey @leobrimblecombe,
if I remember right this is a feature that others have requested before by another Herbarium, I think Edinburgh? Can’t find on the forum but maybe another collection will chime in.
The way the report runner works in Sp7 is as you describe – it can only print one label per unique row in the query results, there’s no way to make it repeat by an integer field.
Some collections, including ours, use a workaround (i.e. including a field of a preparation or prep attribute or other related table that has the right number of duplicates). For example, I have a specific prep attribute field that is only in wet lots in my label query, so that lots with wet and dry components print 2 labels instead of one.
@nfshoobs is exactly right. This is something not currently supported in Specify 7, but is something we have scheduled to resolve in our development plan for next year. The workaround described is a simple way to duplicate this behavior without this capability yet integrated.
This has been requested by a large number of institutions (CSIRO, NMSU, RBGV, and OSU) so it has become an important item on our to-do list. I’ve added your name and institution to the issue as well!
You can track the progress and updates for this capability here:
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