Barcode EAN 128

rbuser

Hi. I have downloaded the trial of the "barcode
library"(http://www.psoft.sk/product.php?id=1).

I'm trying to print a Barcode EAN 128 whith this tool beacause the
TppDBBarcode dont work good.

The standard components for Delphi7, ReportBuilder7.04 (TppDBBarCode)
requires a Start char for encoding a EAN 128:
#208 START A
#209 START B
#210 START C

And a FNC1 as Function1 char (#207) as the Help say.

The FAQ for the "Barcode Library" wrote that the FNC1 char is #102, but it
don???t wrote which char is the start char.

So, I have a data pipeline and datafield... previus I encode the barcode
as: Result:=#208+#207+'02'+myartid+#102+'15'+mydate...

Now how can I do?

Anybody experienced whit this Barcode Library?
the tool developer doesnt answered to me.

Thank you in advance for your reply.



--- posted by geoForum on http://delphi.newswhat.com

nicocizik

Hello,

Below is a post from another customer with some similar problems. Perhaps
the information will help you as well. We apologize, nn all honesty our
knowledge of barcode symbologies is lacking.

The RB barcode components originated as a stand alone barcode component that
we acquired from another company. The original developer of the component
was very much an expert in barcodes and had tested the barcode output with a
variety of barcode readers.

---

I have seen the standard RB response when people ask about EAN128 (I've
posted below for reference).

With regard to point 1, that link takes you to a page which shows the USS
Code-128 Character Set. They show Start A as being #203, but in the RB help
files in the section on Manually Encoding Data for Code 128, Start A is
#208. In fact, for all of these function codes, all the RB Codes are +5
higher than the ones shown on this web page (another page
http://grandzebu.net/informatique/codbar-en/code128.htm also uses #203 for
Start A). Why are the RB codes different?

With regards to point 2, I have AutoEncode set to False. Sometimes I can set
a value to Data and its ok. Othertimes I can set Data to a value and it RB
displays an message box with an empty message. So it appears to still be
doing some sort of encoding/check anyway. What's going on? I think what is
happening is that I was using Character set C which seems to require an even
number of numbers. Character Set A seems to be more successful. A nicer
error message would have saved me a lot of time.

After several hours of struggling and going by a very torturous route, I
finally seem to have been able to print EAN128 barcodes with multiple
segments separated by FNC1 by doing something like this:

ppBarcode1.AutoEncode := False;
ppBarcode1.Data := #208#207+'01121221'+#207+'17060310'; //#208= Start A,
#207=FNC1

It seems to print and scan correctly. One interesting side effect though is
that Char Set A is supposed to support uppercase characters only. But when
it scans they show in lowercase.

Char Set C does give a much more compressed barcode. If you can use numbers
and if you make sure each segment has an even number of digits (it doesn't
seem to matter if the overall length is even, each segments seems to need to
be even), then you should use Set C like this:

ppBarcode1.AutoEncode := False;
ppBarcode1.Data := #210#207+'01121221'+#207+'17060310'; //#210= Start C,
#207=FNC1

Hopefully others will find this useful.

Regards

Jeff

--------------------------------------------------------
Tech Tip: UCC/EAN 128 Barcode Generation
--------------------------------------------------------

ReportBuilder's support for the Code 128 barcode symbology can be used to
print UCC\EAN 128 barcodes.
Code 128 is general purpose symbology that can be used to generate UCC/EAN
128 barcodes.

1. Here is a link that came up when I searched in Google. It is for another
barcode product, but it explains the symbology.

http://www.idautomation.com/code128faq.html#EAN128andUCC128

2. The TppBarCode component contains an AutoEncode property that defaults to
True. To support UCC/EAN 128 you will need set AutoEncode to False and
manually encode the data. See the AutoEncode topic in the RBuilder.hlp. From
there you can access a related topic on manually encoding Code 128 data.


--
Regards,

Nico Cizik
Digital Metaphors
http://www.digital-metaphors.com