>> As far as printing barcodes, only Code 39 doesn't require special encoding. I am using a barcode font package from ID Automation, www.bizfonts.com. They have very generous licensing terms and have fonts for just about everything, all common bar codes plus OCR and MICR. Licensing any of their fonts entitles you to download their utilities, including an ActiveX control that does the encoding. They list VFP as being supported by their ActiveX control. Other utilities include UFLs for Crystal Reports as well as add-ins for Word and Excel.
>> In my application, I am generating the labels via Crystal Reports since the client will be creating additional labels besides the initial set included in the app, and they already are familiar with creating report in Crystal. But there's no reason why you couldn't use the activex control and native VFP reports.
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>If I understand you correctly, if I only need to print alphanumeric strings up to 8 characters max - Code 39 font is ok and I thus don't need any active-x controls etc.
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Exactly; the Zebra drivers and fonts are a real pleasure to work with; I've had outstanding results with both the 4000 and 6000 series printers. We did determine that, for printing in volume, the use of a thin-film ribbon gives a more consistent result than the directr thermal printing, especially in environments which vary widely in humidity and temperature. We use them to produce Code 39, UPC-A and EAN-13B compliant labels with no special effort beyond the definition of some custom paper sizes for our barcoded forms under Windows - not a function of VFP, but of the Windows Printer Setup dialog. The alternative to defining custom paper sizes is to bypass the GDI entirely and assume full responsibility for sending the necessary control codes to the printer, which we've also done, using my DIRPRTCLASS (available for download in the Files section) to write directly to the spooler without engaging the GDI.