HELP! Barcode Label Printing

rbuser

Hello,
I am using ReportBuilder Professional version 5.0 with Delphi 5 and Windows 2000 to design reports that will print 128A bar
codes to a Blaster Advantage label printer. My problem is that the labels do not always print correctly. The report simply consists of
a TppBarcode, which has it's data property set at runtime. Unfortunately, I can not find a pattern for when the labels print correctly
and when they don't, so there is not much more information that I can provide for you. If anybody has any suggestions at all, they
would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

rbuser

Tom,
you should try posting some of the barcodes
but i'm gonna give it a shot
first, a barcode is a series of lines and the thickness and space between
lines makes a code readable (you already knew this)
so to troubleshoot you could start by getting some 128 barcodes from
packeging lables that do read and try to print those
if your barcodes don't get read then visually look for the difference in
both patterns
it could also be that (and i do not know the implementation of the code in
RB) you do not provide the checksum necessary to make the code readable or
that you do provide the checksum and RB is calculating another one
if you say that sometimes the code is readable is it then the same code or
another and when you have printed a readable code and you reprint it is it
readabe again; it could be that you have a faulty barcode reader wich
sometimes gives a good scan and sometimes not
...
i quickly had a look at the 128 implementation
you could try to set the autoencode feature off (wich will generate the most
compact barcode) so you can decide to only use set A of the 128 code
this is well explained in the help
also try playing with the calccheckdigit property

last resort: if the printer is a barcode label printer then the printer will
have built in fonts to generate barcodes
it is the most efficient way to print barcode using the built in mechanisms
of the printer instead of printing a bitmap

cu
marc