Producing a 'paper' catalog

[candleshop]

Is there an easy way to produce a either a pricelist or a full colour paper catalogue for printing, or as a pdf for downloading (we have the full version of Adobe Acrobat/Distiller) using the Actinic database?

Dave Harris
http://www.somethingforthewickend.com

[suncloth]

I am very interested in this capability as well.

[Jan]

One of my customers has adapted the catalog summary report to do this - prices are VAT exclusive by default in this report though, he only uses a single tax rate for all products and so was able to calculate the VAT. It's tricky because really you want your catalog to be high quality and impressive and the catalog summary report isn't really, it makes a nice price list though if your pricing structure is simple enough.

I have also heard of people putting the website onto a CD and sending that out. People can do everything except order.

Regards

[HowardW]

Hi
All the data for the site is held in tables in the Actinic database. Using Access it should be fairly easy to construct a query that makes a table which includes Section name, product code, name, descriptions, price (including VAT if required) plus the picture locations.
The resultant table can be loaded into any DTP package which has a database publisher component and hopefully laid out as a catalogue. Which can then be put into Acrobat format.
Howard

[Jan]

It is fairly easy to produce that data from the access database until you start to include components and permutuations, linked products, the different pricing options and so on - they make it much harder. Not impossible though.

Regards

[candleshop]

Thanks Howard. I have used the Database with Access 2000 but unfortunately my skill with Access isn't all that and is very basic. I know I can build a house by wacking up 4 walls, sticking some windows and doors in and putting a roof on top, but the reality is I couldn't build a house.
I do have Publisher and QuarkXpress. I think I'll have to do a catalogue manually. :(

[paulh69]

unfortunately actinic does not store images within the products database and no reporting or DTP programs allow dynamic images from external files - inserting product images would be a manual process