Joanna McCaffrey
Posts:40
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| 25-11-2009 4:16 AM |
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Hello - I'd like to print out labels with our barcode field coming out in barcode font. Has anyone done this, and can you please walk me thru setting it up from the beginning? What font do I use, where do I get it, how do I configure Crystal to see it? I can do the rest in terms of configuring a piece of text or variable to print out using a certain font.
Regards - Joanna |
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Michael Skadowski
Posts:1
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| 25-11-2009 4:53 AM |
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Hello Joanna,
We have been planning to do this same work here but we haven't started just yet. We now have all the necessary components and expect to begin this work in the coming month. I can't answer all of your questions at this time but I can tell you that the barcode is just anotherfont howeveryou may have to purchase it since barcode symbologies appear to require a license to use them when you want to create your own labels in this way. Most people use a barcode label maker program that generates a label and this software has various symbologies included. But in this case, where we want to use Crystal Reports to create the label you will have to find some way of acquiring the barcode font so that it can be selected during the design of your label. I think there are a few sites that will allow you to use a sample so you can at least experiment with using the font but that will most liikely allow you very limited use of the font. We looked into buying the font and acquired a product called "BarcodeMaker" from a company called Wasp Barcode Technologies - the Pro version is supposed to be fully compatible with Crystal Reports and it includes at least a dozen of the most widely used currently supported symbologies. I am not recommending this product - we haven't installed the product yet and I couldn't endorse a particular product anyway. But once we have this going I would be able to share our experience with you. We have a staff member who is quite proficient in CR Design and I will be happy to pass along the answer to your question when I have it - I believe she has already created a protoype for the report which will actually be size of our current label stock (here we use a 1 x 3, 1-up adhesive label and a non-adhesive tag). I'll keep you posted.
Michael |
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Michael J. Skadowski
Information Technology Specialist
Smithsonian Institution - National Museum of the American Indian
Museum Assets & Operations/Applications
Cultural Resources Center
4220 Silver Hill Rd.
Suitland MD 20746-2863
Tel. 301.238.1530 Fax 301.238.3202
email: skadowskim@si.edu
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William Real
Posts:47
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| 25-11-2009 5:18 AM |
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Hi Joanna,
Here is a link with some useful info
http://www.adams1.com/fonts.html
We use a couple of the free/shareware Code 3of9 fonts. I think we got them through this web site or something similar.
You need to include the start/stop character which for Code 3of9 is "*".
We use a formula in the crystal report like this
"*" & {elocatio_csv.LocBarcode} & "*"
We find it is very useful to have a font that includes human-readable characters.
The hardest part, we found, is formatting the report so the barcodes and whatever text we want print in the center the actual labels. Lots of trial and error, I'm afraid. In theory you should be able to set it up in the Layout tab of the Section Expert, which allows you to set up multiple columns. But we found that entering the actual measurements does not always work, so we fiddled and tweaked the numbers and section sizes until it worked.
I could send you any of the reports we use if that would help.
Will Real
Carnegie Museum of Art
Pittsburgh |
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Linda Gruber
Posts:2
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| 25-11-2009 5:34 AM |
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I believe a standard 3 of 9 barcode font comes with Microsoft Office. It is accessible through Crystal Reports. The process would be just to create the Crystal Report in the label form and change the barcode field’s font to 3 of 9. You can also duplicate the barcode field and keep the standard font so that it is also human readable. This duplicate field could be small and above or below the barcode. The bar code readers I have experience with have a setting to turn on or off the leading and trailing characters. So you can choose whether you want to use the formula suggested by Will ( "*" & {elocatio_csv.LocBarcode} & "*") which puts the asterisks surrounding the field or whether you want to change the configuration on the barcode reader. We were using Symbol brand. While we haven’t actually implemented this, it is the direction we were planning to go.
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Joanna McCaffrey
Posts:40
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| 25-11-2009 8:40 AM |
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Hi Will - thanks for the input. I'd appreciate a sample report if you could send it.jmccaffrey@fieldmuseum.org. Thank you for the support.
Joanna |
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Joanna McCaffrey
Posts:40
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| 25-11-2009 8:42 AM |
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Linda, Michael, and Will - thanks for all the great input. That gives me lots to get started with.
Regards,
Joanna |
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Karen Biddle
Posts:69
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| 25-11-2009 8:42 AM |
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Hi there,
You simply need the fonts installed on your PC.
Bear in mind that in a network situation, everyone who wants to use this report must have the barcode font installed on their PC.
-Karen Biddle |
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Karen Biddle
Posts:69
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| 25-11-2009 8:42 AM |
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Hi there,
You simply need the fonts installed on your PC.
Bear in mind that in a network situation, everyone who wants to use this report must have the barcode font installed on their PC.
-Karen Biddle |
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