Excellent thoughts, I hadn't considered using Adobe's fonts. Printing quality and so forth won't be a problem, the printers are specific barcode label printers designed to do just that. My job is to simplify the current process. The client already prints their own labels, but the existing software was not meant to be used by shop floor personnel. All in all a very interesting project.
Once again, I am simply amazed at the depth and variety of your knowledge. So tell me, where do you hide the multi-terabyte drive array that stores all this stuff? I spent most of last night researching web sites on barcodes and barcoding in general, but I seriously doubt I'll remember much of this two years after the project is complete.
Ah well, thanks again for the help. Lord knows I need all the help I can get..

Randy

>
>Ignoring the pricing issue, I use Adobe's UPC-A and EAN-13B fonts, and have had excellent results; they can be integrated into any Win32 application that supports fonts. Barcode compliance is largely an issue of printer quality (bottom line: forget about creating reliable barcodes with standard DMPs and inkjets; laser printers, dedicated thermal or thin-film impact barcode printers, and a very few high-end DMPs that support single-pass ribbons are what's needed in a production environment) and in the case where decent print quality and media is used, as long as the printer has a Windows OS driver that supports TrueType fonts, the Adobe fonts work well, and Adobe's licensing policy is relatively straightforward. As far as whether a generated barcode will be accepted by a third-party, in most cases there is a published compliance specification for each business partner using the barcode, which will usually specify placement (where to place the barcode on the label, surrounding idle
>space requirements), content (nature of check digits or polynomial check characters) and sizing of the barcode varies from target to target business. In the case of most logistics carriers and publishers, the two industries I deal with most often regarding third-party acceptance of barcodes, the business partner will often supply a compliance suite and in most cases where the barcode you submit is crucial to their business practices, will require you to submit a compliance sample from each printer before they agree to accept your output, even if they've already approved the label on an identical setup at your site.
>
>Media quality affects barcode quality, and relative placement of stock in the printer, or in the case of printers using ribbons, ribbon alignment in the print path, will often affect how the barcode is produced. Laser printer suffer badly when toner smearing or spotting due to a dirty drum, too. In a production environment, 90% isn't even close to good enough - 90% indicates that 1 in 10 reads fails for some reason. Make sure that your clients understand the meaning of a bad barcode on their business; it's like what happens in the supermarket when the cash register scanner gets dirty and the clerk has to hand-enter each item into the register at its best...