Dymo Printing

Need to connect your CRM installation to a custom label printer such as a Dymo printer? The following is another good example of customizing the CRM 2011 ribbon in order to the connect a Dymo printer in a context sensitive manner. We'll assume that we're integrating the Dymo printer to the CRM contact form. The end result is shown below whereby the address of the opened contact is sent to a Dymo label printer by simply clicking the "Dymo Print" icon.

So how can this be configured?

Start by using the Visual Ribbon Editor to configure the Dymo Print button on the ribbon (notice that I borrowed the icons for this from "Print Quote" icons but you could of course define your own web resource images and link to the those).

In the actions section, define a jscript function called DymoPrint and reference the jscript library where this function will live.

You can also define a DisplayRule so that the icon only shows in Existing forms (i.e. not the Create form). This makes sense as you should only be able to print once the form has been saved.

Add the jscript function to the jscript web resource indicated in the screenshot above which consists of 2 parts:

1. Concatenate the print string
2. Call the Dymo printer add-in

Note that in order for this to work the Dymo printer needs to be installed on the local computer. If this is not the case a friendly error message will be issued.

It also looks for the Label.lwl file which specifies the formatting for the print out in the 3 locations specified in the script. If you are using a different file name or this is in a different file path, you will need to update the script accordingly.

function DymoPrint() {

      var texttocopy = "";

     

      try {

                if (Xrm.Page.getAttribute("address1_line1").getValue() != null)                

                      texttocopy += "\n" + Xrm.Page.getAttribute("address1_line1").getValue();        

                if (Xrm.Page.getAttribute("address1_line2").getValue() != null)                

                      texttocopy += " " + Xrm.Page.getAttribute("address1_line2").getValue();           

                if (Xrm.Page.getAttribute("address1_line3").getValue() != null)                

                      texttocopy += " " + Xrm.Page.getAttribute("address1_line3").getValue();           

                if (Xrm.Page.getAttribute("address1_city").getValue() != null)                 

                      texttocopy += "\n" + Xrm.Page.getAttribute("address1_city").getValue() + ",";           

                if (Xrm.Page.getAttribute("address1_stateorprovince").getValue() != null)

                    texttocopy += " " + Xrm.Page.getAttribute("address1_stateorprovince").getText();           

                if (Xrm.Page.getAttribute("address1_postalcode").getValue() != null)                 

                      texttocopy += " " + Xrm.Page.getAttribute("address1_postalcode").getValue();         

                if (Xrm.Page.getAttribute("address1_country").getValue() != null)

                    texttocopy += "\n" + Xrm.Page.getAttribute("address1_country").getText();     

                var DymoAddIn, DymoLabel;

                DymoAddIn = new ActiveXObject("DYMO.DymoAddIn"); 

                DymoLabel = new ActiveXObject("DYMO.DymoLabels");

                if(DymoAddIn.Open("C:\\Documents and Settings\\All Users\\Documents\\DYMO Label\\Label Files\\LABEL.LWL"))   {           

                      DymoLabel.SetAddress(1, texttocopy);       

                      DymoAddIn.Print(1, true);

                }   else if (DymoAddIn.Open("C:\\Program Files\\DYMO Label\\Label Files\\LABEL.LWL"))   {      

                      DymoLabel.SetAddress(1, texttocopy);       

                      DymoAddIn.Print(1, true);

                }   else if (DymoAddIn.Open("C:\\Users\\Public\\Documents\\DYMO Label\\Label Files\\LABEL.LWL"))   {      

                      DymoLabel.SetAddress(1, texttocopy);       

                      DymoAddIn.Print(1, true); }  

                else   {           

                      alert("Error: Label file LABEL.LWL Not Found! Please speak to your system admin");

                }

      } catch(e) {     

            alert("You do not have the Dymo AddIn installed. This is required for printing labels."); 

            alert(texttocopy);

      }

}