Software - Page: 1 of 1

This is a simple printing price estimator program that will calculate your costs for printing jobs. It uses your local currency settings as defined by your windows region settings, if you are not from the US. It is your job to figure out some of the specifics like how many print on a page, how many press sheets cut from the sheet you purchase and what your overhead costs amount to in hourly rate to be added into the labor rate charged.

The [Print Price Schedule] command will create the printout (shown at right) which actually fits on a 5½" x 8½" sheet if you prefer to keep the printouts for your files in a smaller format. (I usually printout to the smaller size, and set my printer to a 5½x8½ organizer page, and it fits the page fine).

The [Print Customer Quote] command on the main screen will present you with a menu to enter customer information and select cost items you would like included on the customer quote.

By selecting the [Set Quantities] command on the main screen, you will be presented with 10 boxes in which to enter the 10 quantities you would like to have quoted.

By selecting the [Set Defaults] commadn on the main screen, you will be presented with a menu to set many program default values that will be used each time the program is loaded.

If you would like to download the shareware copy, see the link at right. To order a CD with the shareware copy, please send $3.00 to cover the cost of postage and materials to:

Lance Williams
Williams Stationery Co.
PO Box 266
Camden, NY 13315

03/05/2005: [Ver. 2.1.1] Found a minor bug in the printing of a customer quote where the program would error out if you went to print a second quote. Fixed the problem. This version is now compiled in MS VB 6.0, and also installs into a different directory, so you will have to get the new complete install package, and uninstall the old version before installing the new version.

Also added a program to the bundle from Gary Remson. It is a Paper Cutting Estimating program, and really seems to work quite well. He gave permission to include it in the package, so here it is!

02/13/2005: [Ver. 2.1.0] Spend the past few days doing some major additions to the program to add the ability to print a customer copy of the price quote. Here are the changes made to the program:

1: Fixed a problem with the printing of the price schedule, the added costs item was printing the wrong information since I changed the way that item is handled...

2: Changed the shareware restrictions to now allow 30 days of use of all program options. After 30 days, the printing options will be disabled.

3: Added the ability to print a customer quote form. This is done with a pop-up menu to enter the customer information and to select from a range of cost information to include with the quote.

4: Added another "Added Cost" option for the addition of any fixed charges (special colors or such that don't vary by the number of items printed).

02/05/2005: [Ver. 2.0.0] This was a major change in the program, therefore I have moved the version number up to version 2.0. I have redesigned the interface somewhat, and added the following items:
1: Added the ability to calculate both multiple colors on a single press and multiple colors on multiple presses. If you are running multiple automatic presses with a single person, use the percentage of labor for press operations in the "Set Defaults" options to adjust labor for each addtional press used. (Defaults to 30%)
2: Fixed the tab indexes for the interface so that it sequences top down on the fill-in boxes.
3: Coded the input boxes to automatically highlight the current text in the box for instant replacement when typing, so you don't have to either double click the box or click-n-roll to select the current text in the box.
4: Added the option to set different quantities to quote, but NOT save to the data file, so you can keep your standard quantities in the file, and still quote other quantities and not have to reset the stored quantities back to your standard default quantities.

01/30/2005: [Ver. 1.4.2] Found a division by zero problem with the new calculations of the Fold/Perf/Score/Cutting/Etc. item after I changed the code to process it by thousands/hour instead of a Cost/Hour calculation. I also corrected the printout of the typesetting time that improperly printed the time entered.

01/30/2005: [Ver. 1.4.1] Did some extensive modifications to the program yesterday and today from some very constructive thoughts from a couple users:

1: Added the storage of quantity changes when they are made so they become the new default quantities.

2: Added the ability to set some program defaults that are also saved: Job Set Up Time, Hourly Labor Rate, Press IPH and the cost of shipping for engravings.

3: Added the ability to set and save the markup percentage on paper and engravings and also a new item: Setting a profit margin above and beyond the profit figured into the labor rate.

4: Changed the computation of the Folding/Perfing/Scoring/Etc. charges to an entry of Minutes per Thousand and is calculated at the hourly labor rate.

5: I have also added a PRICING.PDF file that describes the usage of the various fields and what data you are entering, along with this history file.

01/28/2005: [Ver. 1.3.3] Fixed some of the code that was generating an [Error 13] code if some of the entry boxes were left blank. Also, the typesetting fees were not being calculated properly. I had just added this to Ver. 1.3.2, and had neglected to test it. I wasn't converting some strings to numerical variables as the root cause for all these errors....

01/27/2005: [Ver. 1.3.2] Changed the compression program the SFX file was created with, some errors were occuring when extracting the files.

01/26/2005: [Ver. 1.3.2] Initial public release of the program.