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Bar Code Labeling Software

R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
I need to label some packages I will be shipping, both the bags the
boards are in and the boxes. There will be several fields on the labels
and each field has a bar code, CODE128. I may also try to label the
individual boards, but there isn't much room for a label, maybe on top
of the FPGA. I found some software that is supposed to work with Open
Office, but I haven't figured out quite how to make it work (I'll spend
a little more time with it later today). I want to print onto the
pre-cut label sheets of a couple of different sizes.

In case the Open Office software is a bust for me, I wondering what
others use for this? I don't think I will be using this more than once,
so I'm not looking to spend a bunch on it.
 
R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
I decided to cross post this to c.a.e

I need to label some packages I will be shipping, both the bags the
boards are in and the boxes. There will be several fields on the labels
and each field has a bar code, CODE128. I may also try to label the
individual boards, but there isn't much room for a label, maybe on top
of the FPGA. I found some software that is supposed to work with Open
Office, but I haven't figured out quite how to make it work (I'll spend
a little more time with it later today). I want to print onto the
pre-cut label sheets of a couple of different sizes.

In case the Open Office software is a bust for me, I wondering what
others use for this? I don't think I will be using this more than once,
so I'm not looking to spend a bunch on it.
 
N

Nico Coesel

Jan 1, 1970
0
rickman said:
I need to label some packages I will be shipping, both the bags the
boards are in and the boxes. There will be several fields on the labels
and each field has a bar code, CODE128. I may also try to label the
individual boards, but there isn't much room for a label, maybe on top
of the FPGA. I found some software that is supposed to work with Open
Office, but I haven't figured out quite how to make it work (I'll spend
a little more time with it later today). I want to print onto the
pre-cut label sheets of a couple of different sizes.

http://www.dafont.com/code-128.font
 
I

Ivan Shmakov

Jan 1, 1970
0
rickman said:
I need to label some packages I will be shipping, both the bags the
boards are in and the boxes. There will be several fields on the
labels and each field has a bar code, CODE128.

I guess that GNU Barcode [1] and Perl's Barcode::Code128 [2] may
be worth a look.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/software/barcode/
[2] http://search.cpan.org/dist/Barcode-Code128/

[...]
In case the Open Office software is a bust for me, I wondering what
others use for this? I don't think I will be using this more than
once, so I'm not looking to spend a bunch on it.

Usually, I'd use LaTeX for such a task (along with some Shell
scriptery, etc.), even if it's (quite) a bit of an overkill.
However, I believe that any general purpose barcode generator
out there now has an option to produce PNGs, which could then be
imported into whatever page layout software used.
 
R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
I need to label some packages I will be shipping, both the bags the
boards are in and the boxes. There will be several fields on the
labels and each field has a bar code, CODE128.

I guess that GNU Barcode [1] and Perl's Barcode::Code128 [2] may
be worth a look.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/software/barcode/
[2] http://search.cpan.org/dist/Barcode-Code128/

[...]
In case the Open Office software is a bust for me, I wondering what
others use for this? I don't think I will be using this more than
once, so I'm not looking to spend a bunch on it.

Usually, I'd use LaTeX for such a task (along with some Shell
scriptery, etc.), even if it's (quite) a bit of an overkill.
However, I believe that any general purpose barcode generator
out there now has an option to produce PNGs, which could then be
imported into whatever page layout software used.

Thanks for the links. I need to ship this tomorrow so I don't have time
to learn a bunch of stuff. I went to Office Depot and the clerk seemed
like a reasonable fellow, but didn't really know anything about what
software might print barcodes.

The cpan.org page has an "online" barcode generator that uses jquery.
The page looks great, but I can't figure out how to get the image.
Right clicking doesn't give an option to save the image even though
there are four choices for the image format. I was even able to get the
page to work offline by saving it on my hard drive, but still no image
file. I wish I could get Firefox to run, but it seems to crap out on my
system these days. I can always get an image on a webpage from FF.

Any suggestions? Am I missing something obvious?
 
R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
I need to label some packages I will be shipping, both the bags
the boards are in and the boxes. There will be several fields on
the labels and each field has a bar code, CODE128.

I guess that GNU Barcode [1] and Perl's Barcode::Code128 [2] may be
worth a look.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/software/barcode/ [2]
http://search.cpan.org/dist/Barcode-Code128/

[...]

In case the Open Office software is a bust for me, I wondering
what others use for this? I don't think I will be using this
more than once, so I'm not looking to spend a bunch on it.

Usually, I'd use LaTeX for such a task (along with some Shell
scriptery, etc.), even if it's (quite) a bit of an overkill.
However, I believe that any general purpose barcode generator out
there now has an option to produce PNGs, which could then be
imported into whatever page layout software used.

Thanks for the links. I need to ship this tomorrow so I don't have
time to learn a bunch of stuff. I went to Office Depot and the clerk
seemed like a reasonable fellow, but didn't really know anything
about what software might print barcodes.

The cpan.org page has an "online" barcode generator that uses jquery.
The page looks great, but I can't figure out how to get the image.
Right clicking doesn't give an option to save the image even though
there are four choices for the image format. I was even able to get
the page to work offline by saving it on my hard drive, but still no
image file. I wish I could get Firefox to run, but it seems to crap
out on my system these days. I can always get an image on a webpage
from FF.

Any suggestions? Am I missing something obvious?

Perhaps a silly answer but have you tried [CTRL]-PrintScreen and pasted
into something like MS Paint?

Select the desired area in Paint and save to the desired image format.

If necessary, first make the image bigger in the web-browser using
[CTRL}-MouseScrollButton?

Yes, I could do that, but I found another way. Turns out the wiki page
on Code128 has some links at the bottom of the page for sources of code
and tools. One of them led me to a font package with an Excel macro
that does *exactly* what I need. Type the info into one cell and the
barcode shows up in another cell. Size each of the cells appropriately
and adjust the font size of the bar code and Bob's your uncle!

I had to trust the author since this uses a macro which could have been
a virus. I scanned it first, but I don't know how well AVS works to
find BASIC coded viruses in macros. But he said he it wasn't a virus,
and I'm sure he wouldn't lie... lol.
 
M

MrTallyman

Jan 1, 1970
0
I need to label some packages I will be shipping, both the bags
the boards are in and the boxes. There will be several fields on
the labels and each field has a bar code, CODE128.

I guess that GNU Barcode [1] and Perl's Barcode::Code128 [2] may be
worth a look.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/software/barcode/ [2]
http://search.cpan.org/dist/Barcode-Code128/

[...]

In case the Open Office software is a bust for me, I wondering
what others use for this? I don't think I will be using this
more than once, so I'm not looking to spend a bunch on it.

Usually, I'd use LaTeX for such a task (along with some Shell
scriptery, etc.), even if it's (quite) a bit of an overkill.
However, I believe that any general purpose barcode generator out
there now has an option to produce PNGs, which could then be
imported into whatever page layout software used.

Thanks for the links. I need to ship this tomorrow so I don't have
time to learn a bunch of stuff. I went to Office Depot and the clerk
seemed like a reasonable fellow, but didn't really know anything
about what software might print barcodes.

The cpan.org page has an "online" barcode generator that uses jquery.
The page looks great, but I can't figure out how to get the image.
Right clicking doesn't give an option to save the image even though
there are four choices for the image format. I was even able to get
the page to work offline by saving it on my hard drive, but still no
image file. I wish I could get Firefox to run, but it seems to crap
out on my system these days. I can always get an image on a webpage
from FF.

Any suggestions? Am I missing something obvious?

Perhaps a silly answer but have you tried [CTRL]-PrintScreen and pasted
into something like MS Paint?

Select the desired area in Paint and save to the desired image format.

If necessary, first make the image bigger in the web-browser using
[CTRL}-MouseScrollButton?


CodeSoft label software by TekLynx

http://www.teklynx.com/en/products
 
A

Andrew Smallshaw

Jan 1, 1970
0
So much of this depends on the context. From the mention of
OpenOffice I assume that this is a one-off hand-assembled document
rather than programmatic ouput from a DB or whatever. I've only
had an occasional use for that and I've always found a suitable
web-based generator to paste in from, e.g.
http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/generator/. That seems
to be among the better online options in that it has a wide choice
of formats and the option of EPS output - I'm not overly inclined
to trust low res bitmaps for something like this.

Formatted printed output from programs generally means Postscript
in any event (for a Unix shop at least ;-) ), so inserting a
barcode generation function in the header and then calling it with
the right options later is no big hassle. I wrote a Postscript
EAN-13 generator a few years back - it only took about an hour and
I'm far from a Postscript expert, but I notice the same author as
above has a far more comprehensive library at
https://code.google.com/p/postscriptbarcode/ which looks promising,
although I have no direct experience of it.
 
K

Klaus von der Heyde

Jan 1, 1970
0
Andrew said:
Formatted printed output from programs generally means Postscript
in any event (for a Unix shop at least ;-) ), so inserting a
barcode generation function in the header and then calling it with
the right options later is no big hassle.

GNU barcode writes EPS, as well as other formats.

HTH,
Klaus
 
I

Ivan Shmakov

Jan 1, 1970
0
[Cross-posting to news:alt.barcodes.]

[...]
I've only had an occasional use for that and I've always found a
suitable web-based generator to paste in from, e. g.
http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/generator/. That seems to
be among the better online options in that it has a wide choice of
formats and the option of EPS output - I'm not overly inclined to
trust low res bitmaps for something like this.

Even given that the majority of barcodes (and non-bar codes,
such as the QR code) are essentially raster? (Well, except the
alphanumeric label, if any.)
Formatted printed output from programs generally means PostScript in
any event (for a Unix shop at least ;-) ), so inserting a barcode
generation function in the header and then calling it with the right
options later is no big hassle.

Yet, I cannot refrain from reminding that PostScript is /not/ a
format, but a fully-featured programming language (which has
certain implications on its own.) Surely, I'd prefer to handle
a format which I can parse, instead of one I have to /execute/.
(Generally, that'd mean either PDF or SVG, although the support
for either seem to be falling behind that for PostScript.)

[...]
 
R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
So much of this depends on the context. From the mention of
OpenOffice I assume that this is a one-off hand-assembled document
rather than programmatic ouput from a DB or whatever. I've only
had an occasional use for that and I've always found a suitable
web-based generator to paste in from, e.g.
http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/generator/. That seems
to be among the better online options in that it has a wide choice
of formats and the option of EPS output - I'm not overly inclined
to trust low res bitmaps for something like this.

Yes, a two off actually, two labels and they will need to be updated for
the specific shipment, date, PO number, ect. I like using a spread
sheet for this sort of thing since both the positioning of the fields is
easy and it provides data functions. I found an Excel macro online. I
just looked at the page you provided and the bar codes from the two
sources don't seem to agree. I need to find a third source to verify
which is right... unless I end up with three different outputs of the
same thing! lol

Formatted printed output from programs generally means Postscript
in any event (for a Unix shop at least ;-) ), so inserting a
barcode generation function in the header and then calling it with
the right options later is no big hassle. I wrote a Postscript
EAN-13 generator a few years back - it only took about an hour and
I'm far from a Postscript expert, but I notice the same author as
above has a far more comprehensive library at
https://code.google.com/p/postscriptbarcode/ which looks promising,
although I have no direct experience of it.

I just don't have the time to deal with bar codes any more for now. I
have to get the rest of the paperwork in order. Exports are a PITA.

Thanks for the links!
 
A

Andrew Smallshaw

Jan 1, 1970
0
[Cross-posting to news:alt.barcodes.]
formats and the option of EPS output - I'm not overly inclined to
trust low res bitmaps for something like this.

Even given that the majority of barcodes (and non-bar codes,
such as the QR code) are essentially raster? (Well, except the
alphanumeric label, if any.)

Yes - I've had too many problems with bitmap barcodes in the past.
It seems the biggest problem is that most printers seem to see a
raster image and assume it's fair game for dithering. "Dotty"
barcodes don't scan very well.
Yet, I cannot refrain from reminding that PostScript is /not/ a
format, but a fully-featured programming language (which has
certain implications on its own.) Surely, I'd prefer to handle
a format which I can parse, instead of one I have to /execute/.
(Generally, that'd mean either PDF or SVG, although the support
for either seem to be falling behind that for PostScript.)

It's horses for courses. Personally I view that programmability
as its greatest strength - it means you can draft a standard job
header containing the relevant functions and from then on the
job-specific stuff is high-level stuff that reflects both the
logical layout of the job and the internal layout of the program
doing the generation.

Since the issue here is barcodes consider drawing one "manually".
You'll have a sequence of commands :

Go to x1,y1
Define box width x2 height y2
Fill with black.
Go to x3,y3
Define box width x4 height y4
Fill with black...

30 or 40 times over. That kind of generation gets real tedious
real fast and the resulting code inevitably looks a right mess.
In contrast with postscript you define a standard function once in
the job header and then simply call it, e.g.

(1234567890123) ean13

Of course you can argue that the complexity is simply shifted but
it always seems a _lot_ cleaner to me to put the smarts in the job
itself as opposed to the program - it saves "bitty" I/O for one
thing and expresses the complex stuff in a language designed for
the task at hand.
 
J

Jasen Betts

Jan 1, 1970
0
So much of this depends on the context. From the mention of
OpenOffice I assume that this is a one-off hand-assembled document
rather than programmatic ouput from a DB or whatever. I've only
had an occasional use for that and I've always found a suitable
web-based generator to paste in from, e.g.
http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/generator/. That seems
to be among the better online options in that it has a wide choice
of formats and the option of EPS output - I'm not overly inclined
to trust low res bitmaps for something like this.

barcodes have integer-width stripes, this layout fits well with
bitmaps if the scale factor is an integer. Bitmaps will oftem be
more space-efficient than vector formats, especially if the bitmap
format allows non-square pixels,
 
I

Ivan Shmakov

Jan 1, 1970
0
[Cross-posting to news:alt.barcodes.]

[...]
barcodes have integer-width stripes, this layout fits well with
bitmaps if the scale factor is an integer.

Yes, that's what I wanted to say. However, there's indeed an
issue with various software packages, which apply interpolation
on scaling by default. Which means that the image gets the
blur, the shades, and, finally, the dithering that was observed.
And, frankly, while searching for an option to disable such
interpolation for raster graphics may be an endeavor on its own,
this whole issue rarely arises when using vector graphics.
Bitmaps will often be more space-efficient than vector formats,
especially if the bitmap format allows non-square pixels,

... And as long as one embeds the raster in question into a
vector image, this will almost always be easy to achieve.
 
I just don't have the time to deal with bar codes any more for now. I have
to get the rest of the paperwork in order. Exports are a PITA.

Thanks for the links!

I used gnu barcode and awk to create a unix printer interface which would
produce barcode labels for a POS system I did some years back. This
worked very well, and while I'm not sure why you would want to parse the
output (postscript) rather than simply print it, I would +1 for gnu
barcode ... it just worked for me.

Cheers,
Rob.
 
R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
I used gnu barcode and awk to create a unix printer interface which
would produce barcode labels for a POS system I did some years back.
This worked very well, and while I'm not sure why you would want to
parse the output (postscript) rather than simply print it, I would +1
for gnu barcode ... it just worked for me.

I'm not sure what you are saying. The label I need has a number of
fields with a value and a barcode for each one. I ended up arranging it
in a reasonably easy to read format that fits on a standard label sheet.
I formated the Excel barcodes into labels arranged the labels on a
page and print them out when needed.

I've have yet to verify that the barcodes are actually readable
though... lol I hope they aren't giving my customer fits. I'm sure I
wouldn't hear about it either way.
 
I'm not sure what you are saying. The label I need has a number of

fields with a value and a barcode for each one. I ended up arranging it

in a reasonably easy to read format that fits on a standard label sheet.

I formated the Excel barcodes into labels arranged the labels on a

page and print them out when needed.



I've have yet to verify that the barcodes are actually readable

though... lol I hope they aren't giving my customer fits. I'm sure I

wouldn't hear about it either way.



--



Rick


At work many years ago management decided to put barcode labels on all our process equipment: pressure gauges, flowmeters, level sensors, etc. My predecessor decided on PDF417 (we can fit quite a bit of data in there) and BarTender's software. It's buggy though (or at least the version we got); ifwe want to print a single label the software truncates the output from time to time. It's maddening. But when we print multiple labels from the MS Access database, that works fine. The on-site engineer just waits for me toarrive if he wants new labels printed. Oh, and we got a parallel-port Zebra printer of some sort. When the computers were upgraded, tech support said the printer would not work with a USB-to-parallel adapter, but I proved them wrong XD
 
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