>I am looking at the possibility of creating an Employee ID card complete with a barcode (identifying employee by number).
>I will need to generate/print the cards and also scan them when necessary to provide a quick, reliable means of confirming that an employee has done some specific activity (e.g. received some items from Central Stores).
>I have looked at many of the old messages on the subject of barcodes and I have checked out Hallograms web site regarding hardware etc., but there seems to be a large and confusing number of products out there.
>Does anyone have any insight in to what would be a good starting point.
>Specific questions are:
>a) Does it matter what type of barcode I adopt.
>b) Would a cheap (<$500) printer handle the production of barcodes for 500 employees. (My guess is Yes - but does anyone have any particular printer they can reccommend or diss)
>c) What reader would you recommend. It will probably read 100-200 cards/day. It must integrate into VFP app.
>
>There is no requirement for any of this equipment to be mobile.

As was mentioned by James, there are many good printers, and most lasers will also do a good job, and with the addition of an inexpensive laminator will make really nice cards. Most any scanner will do, and if you want/need it, I have VFP code to decode the output of one of those free little cuecat scanners you can get at radio shack. As a matter of fact, I could see how I could set up a dll to grab the keyboard input and know if it was a scan. The idea of a serial scanner probably has some merit, but since I always want to fill in a field anyways, keyboard style are just easier to deal with.