Re: RE: Printing Bar Codes Using Fonts

["Mike Naughton" <mnaughton@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thank you! I may end up experimenting with this, although a hitch may be
that we have to print these from at least three separate printers, and I'm
not sure they're all the same type. But it's nice to know this is possible
. . . .

rpg400-l@midrange.com writes:
>Bar codes need precise, nearly-graphical printing; fonts might be useful
>for
>printing OCR stuff.  Slow, cheap impact printers are generally too sloppy
>for either OCR or bar codes, and they're too slow anyway: a bar code is a
>lot of impact printing.
>
>The higher-speed impact printers (Genicom, etc.) have bar-coding
>capabilities built in; all you have to do is find the printer functions
>reference manual.  Usually it involves sending hex sequence prefixed by an
>escape code (like x'02'), a series of hex commands defining the bar code
>format (from the functions reference manual), the data to be translated,
>and
>a terminating escape sequence.  I've done this on a couple of printers and
>it's slick.  The dot-matrix stuff prints quickly and the bar code part
>works
>fine.
>
>There are 3rd party outfits providing "bar-code enabling" devices as well,
>but they're usually expensive (like "rip-off" expensive).


Mike Naughton
Senior Programmer/Analyst
Judd Wire, Inc.
124 Turnpike Road
Turners Falls, MA  01376
413-863-4357 x444
mnaughton@juddwire.com