Products available for printing barcodes
IDAutomation has provided several methods for printing barcodes.
Components such as the
ActiveX Controls,
ASP Webserver Components
and Java Barcode Packages
do not require the use of additional automation tools to calculate the
check digits because the calculation takes place inside the component.
However, fonts offer a high level of scalability with operating systems,
applications and printer independence and are sometimes easier to integrate
into an application.
Learn
more about the benefits of using fonts over other tools.
Printing with Fonts:
Barcode fonts allow for printing barcodes from MS Windows, Macintosh,
UNIX, AS/400 and a variety of other operating systems; TrueType, PCL
laserjet soft fonts, PostScript (type 1) Binary and ASCII versions are
available for most symbologies. Implementing barcode solutions with
IDAutomation fonts provides a high level of scalability with operating
systems, applications and printer independence. For the use of TrueType
barcode fonts for Windows, consider IDAutomation's
TrueType Font Package.
Non-technical users should use the self-checking barcode fonts. Self-checking
fonts (such as
Code 39
and Codabar)
have checking code built-in so it is unnecessary to calculate check
characters. Check characters are used in more dense symbologies so the
barcode scanner can verify the barcode was scanned correctly. However,
to help users integrate barcodes into applications, IDAutomation provides
several
font tools and application add-ins to automatically format the
start, stop and check characters to the barcode font.
Self-checking fonts are easy to use in graphical applications and
can be entered directly from the keyboard. All barcodes require a start
and stop character that must be included in the barcode so the scanner
knows where the barcode starts and ends. For example, to create a barcode
that encodes the data "1234ABCD" with the Code 39 Font: (1) select the
font from the list of fonts in the application; (2) type the start character
"!"; (3) type the data "1234ABCD"; (4) type the stop character "!";
and then change the font back to the default font of the document.
Automating the printing of self-checking fonts for a mail-merge or
database report is very easy. It is important to make sure the start
and stop characters appear directly before and after the data in the
barcode. For example: to print the Code 39 Fonts from a MS Access report,
use "!" & [FieldName] &
"!" in the Control Source Field where FieldName is the field
that contains the data-to-encode. To print the Code 39 Fonts from a
MS Word mail merge, use
!«FieldName»! for the merge field where FieldName is the name
of the field to merge. This entire set of characters must have the barcode
font selected for it, even though it will not appear correct in the
main document. After the merge is performed, the "«" and "»" will be
removed and the FieldName will be replaced with the text in the data
source.
Printing from a Web
Browser:
The best forms of printing from a web browser include using IDAutomation's
ASP Barcode Server
for IIS, ASP
.NET Barcode Server Control or
Java Barcode Servlets.
See the
Internet
barcode FAQ for more information. IDAutomation provides the
ability to use fonts in OpenType or TrueDoc format, which allows bar-
codes to be displayed dynamically and efficiently on web pages. A sample
of fonts in this format and an evaluation of the conversion tools is
available at the
Internet
Font Embedding Page.
Printing with ActiveX
Controls & DLLs:
Users operating in the Windows environment may use IDAutomation's
ActiveX Controls &
DLLs to integrate bar-coding into any application or development
platform that supports Microsoft's ActiveX or COM specification such
as Delphi, Microsoft Word, Excel, Access, FrontPage, Internet Explorer,
Visual Basic and C++. ActiveX controls are easy to use drag and drop
controls that have the ability to connect to data fields of a data source,
such as a field in MS Access or a cell in Excel. For an easy-to-use
product, when working with the more complicated non self-checking barcode
such as Code 128, POSTNET, UPC, EAN, Interleaved 2 of 5 or PDF417, use
the ActiveX Control if possible. ActiveX Controls only work on Microsoft
Windows operating systems. IDAutomation has provided an
online tutorial for using ActiveX Controls in some popular applications.
Printing from Microsoft .NET and Visual
Studio Dotnet:
IDAutomation's
.NET Barcode
Forms Controls are managed code components that allow easy printing
of barcodes from any .NET environment. For creating barcodes in ASP
Dotnet Web Applications for the Internet, IDAutomation recommends using
the ASP .NET
Barcode Server Control.
Printing with
JavaBeans, Applets or Servlets:
Java programmers and web developers may wish to use IDAutomation's
Java Barcode Packages,
which contain JavaBeans, applets and servlets. These Java products may
be used on any operating system with a Java virtual machine to integrate
automated bar-coding into internet applications, websites or custom
Java applications.
Creating PDF
documents for the Internet and other uses:
IDAutomation barcode fonts may be used to integrate barcodes into
PDF documents to create virus-free portable data files that can be viewed
on all operating systems with a PDF viewer such as Acrobat Reader. The
fonts have been tested and work with the following PDF conversion products:
- Adobe Distiller
Server works well with all of IDAutomation's MICR, OCR and
barcode fonts including symbol-encoded fonts.
- PDFLib is
a library for generating PDF documents "on the fly" and generally
for programmers only. PDFLib runs on Mac, Windows and several Unix
platforms in addition to EBCDIC-based platforms, such as IBM eServer
iSeries 400 and zSeries S/390. It is especially well suited for
generating PDF on a Web server. PDFlib can generate PDF data directly
in memory (instead of on file), resulting in better performance
and avoiding the need for temporary files. This product was implemented
by one of IDAutomation's clients using the
PostScript
Interleaved 2 of 5 Barcode Fonts with Redhat Linux 6.2.
- PDF
Machine is a simple printer driver that allows the creation
of a PDF file from any item that may be printed. Version 6.2 supports
printing with barcode fonts at small point sizes.
Barcode label software programs and
label printers:
If the desire is to print barcode labels, but not from an existing
print process, consider IDAutomation’s
barcode label printing
software or high speed
thermal barcode label
printers. However, it is best to integrate barcode technology
directly into the business application if there is already a print process
where the barcode is needed. To print to a
thermal transfer
label printer, consider
NiceLabel software,
which prints in the printer's native language.
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