Many software are packaged in .msi format, which is the standard format for Windows Installer Server. Because system resources access are required for software to function, they require system admin privileges during installation.

Windows Vista uses a different security model and runs most program with privileges of a normal user. You must acquire system administrator privileges before installing the software.

The following procedure outlines how to install a .msi file under Windows Vista.

Install the Program

Locate the Windows Command Prompt shortcut in your Programs menu (typically Programs → Accessories → Command Prompt and right click on it:

After you confirm, the command prompt will appear. CD into the directory that the file is located under, which is usually c:\users\youAccount\Downloads. Type the whole file at the command prompt, and hit Enter.

C:\Users\ACCOUNT\Downloads>Monterey_BarcodeCreator_V3.3.4.10.msi

The installation will run under administrative privilege.

You can turn off user access control (UAC) completely in Windows Vista. Doing so bypasses some of the additional security measures, but you can install programs just by double clicking on the .msi file without hassle.

To turn off UAC, follow the steps below:

If you have installed Monterey Barcode Creator trial (version 3.3 or above), you can turn the version into a full one by entering registration code. Doing so still require administrative privilege, but you can do so by following the steps below.

In this article we'll work through creating a local reports application using Morovia DataMatrix fonts. The tutorial is based on Visual Studio 2013; they should work on higher versions such as Visual Studio 2015. The tutorial assumes that you have Morovia Datamatrix Fonts & Encoder 5 installed on the development machine.

An example project using Northwind Access database is attached in this article.

In Visual Studio, select New Project... from the File menu. Locate template Reports Application under Other Languages/Reporting category. Give a project name and click OK.

Follow the designer wizard to choose the dataset and the fields in the report. After the wizard is completed, you should get a project as below:

Compile the project and run the program. You should be able to run the program without any errors.

Remember that you cannot just format the string encoded with barcode font to produce a barcode. Instead, the data string must be encoded into a form called “Barcode String” first. The encoder function resides on a DLL written in C++. Unfortunately the report cannot call this DLL directly so we provide a wrapper DLL.

For this tutorial the wrapper DLL is called ReportServicePlugin_DataMatrix5.dll, located under C:\Program Files (x86)\Morovia DataMatrix Fonts & Encoder 5. If you are using a different product, refer to the manual for the name and the location of the wrapper.

Started from Visual Studio 2013 the build engine has changed. Because of this change, you need to copy the DLL to C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\[version]\Bin directory. Replace [version] with the corresponding Visual Studio version, as below:

Now add the assembly to the project reference by right clicking on the project and select Add → Reference. With this step the assembly is copied to output directory every time that the project is built.

Click on Report1.rdlc to switch to report design view. Select Report Properties from Report menu. Click on Reference and add the reference to the custom assembly.

Now right click on the header of the last column and insert a column on the right. Right click on the text box just created, and select Expressions. Change its value to:

Morovia.ReportService.DataMatrixV5.DataMatrixEncode(Fields!LastName.Value,-1)

You can use the builtin operators and functions to pass more complicated string to the encoder function.

Now you can build the project. However, when you run the report, you will see #Error in the new column.

The .Net framework changed the security model.

First open App.config, add the following content just before ending configuration.

  <runtime>

    <!-- enables legacy CAS policy for this process -->

    <NetFx40_LegacySecurityPolicy enabled="true" />

  </runtime>

In Form1.cs file, inside Form_Load method, add

#pragma warning disable 618
  this.reportViewer1.LocalReport.AddTrustedCodeModuleInCurrentAppDomain(
   "ReportServicePlugin_DataMatrix5, Version=1.0.4191.23800, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null");

Note that the parameter must match the custom assembly string. In order for the string to be exact, click on Report Properties/Reference to view the assembly reference string.

Build the project and run again. You should see the barcode string in the new column. Go back to the report designer. Right click on the text box and select Textbox Properties/Font. Change the font MRV DataMatrix5 and font size 6pt. Build the project again.

Download the sample project here.

This article explains how the paid user uses online generator web service.

Request URL should have the following format:

http://www.morovia.com/free-online-barcode-generator/barcode.asp?Key=value&Key=value

For example, such a URL is valid:

http://www.morovia.com/free-online-barcode-generator/barcode.asp?Symbology=0&BarHeight=400&ShowHRText=1&NarrowBarWidth=10&Message=1370938&Rotation=0&UserKey=99000xxx

Parameter keys are case incasesentive; however we recommend that they are spelled as they appear in the table below. Default values are shown in bold.

Note: not all features are exposed through the query string. Contact Morovia support if you feel that the current feature set is inadequate.

When UserKey is specified and validated, requests are logged based on the UserKey. You can request a log of requests by writing to support@morovia.com.

The manual for DataMatrix Fonts & Encoder 5 includes a chapter on adding datamatrix symbols to SSRS 2008 and prior. The process of adding datamatrix to SSRS 2010 is largely the same, with some differences.

Adding datamatrix to SSRS reports require install of customer assembly. To develop reports with custom assembly support, you need “SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT)”. The SSDT is included in the SQL Server installation disk, or you can download it free at Microsoft web site by searching “SQL Server Data Tools”. SSDT is actually a rebranded Visual Studio, withe version correlation as below.

The other report designer software, Report Designer does not have the capability to work with custom assembly.

Remember that you cannot just format the string encoded with barcode font to produce a barcode. Instead, the data string must be encoded into a form called “Barcode String” first. The encoder function resides on a DLL written in C++. Unfortunately the report cannot call this DLL directly so we provide a wrapper DLL.

For this tutorial the wrapper DLL is called ReportServicePlugin_DataMatrix5.dll, located under C:\Program Files (x86)\Morovia DataMatrix Fonts & Encoder 5. If you are using a different product, refer to the manual for the name and the location of the wrapper.

to install the custom assembly, copy the file to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio [version]\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies directory. Replace [version] with the actual Visual Studio version number, for example, 12.0.

Unlike previous versions, the preview action now requires the custom assembly to be defined in the policy file RSPreviewPolicy.conf. If you do not see this file, you probably look into the wrong directory, or you did not install SSDT.

Open RSPreviewPolicy.config file in a text editor (Run as Administrator), add the following content just before two ending CodeGroup tags:

<CodeGroup class="FirstMatchCodeGroup" 
  version="1" 
  PermissionSetName="FullTrust"
  Name="ReportServicePlugin_DataMatrix5.dll" Description="ReportServicePlugin_DataMatrix5.dll">
  <IMembershipCondition class="UrlMembershipCondition" version="1"
Url="C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\ReportServicePlugin_DataMatrix5.dll" />
</CodeGroup>

Make sure that the file path is correct, and the resulted file is a valid XML file.

We recommend that you run SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) as Administrator. This allows you to deploy the report from SSDT. The Administrator privilege is not required when designing and previewing reports.

Click on Report1.rdlc to switch to report design view. Select Report Properties from Report menu. Click on Reference and add the reference to the custom assembly.

Now right click on the header of the last column and insert a column on the right. Right click on the text box just created, and select Expressions. Change its value to:

Morovia.ReportService.DataMatrixV5.DataMatrixEncode(Fields!LastName.Value,-1)

You can use the builtin operators and functions to pass more complicated string to the encoder function.

Now Click the Preview tab. You should see the datamatrix symbols appearing in the report.

You can use Deploy menu from SSDT to deploy the report to the server. However, in order for the server to render the report, you need to add the custom assembly to the server and modify policy file rssrvpolicy.config.

When printed using Crystal Reports RAS engine, some datamatrix barcodes contains defects, which cause the barcode unreadable. This behavior does not appear in print results produced using Crystal Reports Print Engine.

Crytal Reports contains two print engines: Crystal Reports Print Engine (CRPE) and Reporting Application Server (RAS). Although developers may not know it, the two has different implementation. CRPE is the oldest and reliable method that is used in Crystal Reports Designer and Viewer.

The .net code illustrates the use of RAS as print engine:

 String reportPath = @"test.rpt";
  _report.Load(reportPath);
  
  PrinterSettings printer = new PrinterSettings() { PrinterName = @"HPLaserJ"; };
  PrintOutputController rasPrintOutputController;
  rasPrintOutputController = _reportClientDocument.PrintOutputController;
  PrintReportOptions printreportoptions = new PrintReportOptions();
  
  printreportoptions.PrinterName = @"HPLaserJ";
  printreportoptions.NumberOfCopies = 1;
  rasPrintOutputController.PrintReport(printreportoptions);

Figure 1. Defect DataMatrix Barcode

The Crytal Reports RAS engine contains bugs in its font render that produces incorrect widths under certain conditions. To work around the issue the character mappings of the font must be changed.

Upgrade to DataMatrix Fonts & Encoder 5.2 (released in May 2017) or above . Replace encoder function DataMatrixEncodeSet with DataMatrixEncodeSetRAS in your formula definition, then refresh the report.

Crystal Reports UFL (User Function Library) provides a way to expose external functionality to Crystal Reports. Once installed, these functions can be used as if they are native functions. On the other side, the DLL must be installed and registered properly on every computer that your report will run, including computers from which you view the report through a Crystal Reports ActiveX control. Therefore, if the report is going to be distributed to and viewed on multiple computers, a better solution would be to create PDF documents with barcode fonts embedded.

In the following tutorial we will start with a blank report. In the report we created several database fields. Now we want to add a barcode field which encodes shipping ID. We choose Code128C as the barcode format.

Once you finish the report design, you can distribute your report application with Crystal run time files, barcode fonts and the UFL library.

There are three runtime files that need to be included in the installer:

The UFL provided implements all the functions listed in the Font Tools page. To save the space we will not list them in this page. They are very easy to use and remember. To conform to the Crystal Reports requirements, all UFL functions begin with MoroviaBarcode. For example, the function EAN13 listed in Font Tools page is available as MoroviaBarcodeEAN13. All functions take one single parameter which is the data to be encoded.

An EAN-13 barcode encodes a 13-digit number. This number has a check digit at the end based on modulo 10 algorithm. Using Morovia UPC/EAN/Bookland fonts, a total number of 15 characters are needed to encode the whole barcode symbol, as depicted below:

Figure 2. Anatomy of an EAN-13 Barcode

The 16 characters are divided into six parts, as follows:

Putting Altogether

Adding all the parts we derived so far, we get the complete barcode string for EAN-13 number 9780735200449 - É[7ip7e5|haakds]. Format this string with Morovia UPC/EAN/Bookland fonts you will get a complete barcode. Below shows the barcode with font typeface MRV UEBMA, 18 points:

A UPC-A barcode encodes 12 digits with the last digit served as check digit. The UPC-A encoding is very similiar to EAN-13, except the following differences:

A UPC-A barcode string consist of 17 character, and is divided into 6 parts:

Figure 3. Anatomy of a UPC-A Barcode

Putting Altogether

Adding all the parts we derived so far, we hae the complete barcode string for UPC-A number 021898623812 - À[021898|hsdkaS]Â. Format this string with a Morovia UPC/EAN/Bookland font you get a complete barcode. Below shows the barcode with font typeface MRV UEBMA, 18 points:

PCL stands for Printer Control Language, the language that a host computer used to communicate with the printer. The so-called raw printer data, or printer-friendly data, is expressed in printer control language.

Because communication happens directly between a host computer and a printer, the printer must have a built-in PCL interpreter. Some low-end models use host-based drivers instead (the host-based drivers convert PCL commands into raw printer commands). Those printers do not have the capability of processing PCL commands. Furthermore, the printer must be able to process PCL-5, which supports text and vector graphics data, instead of PCL-3, which only process raster bitmap data (PCL-3 is equipped in HP ink jet printers).

PCL-5 is widely supported by many manufacturers. All HP LaserJet printers support PCL-5. Most Xerox and Lexmark laser printers also fully support PCL-5.

This article assumes that you use PCL commands to download and and remove soft fonts. Some high-end printers provide GUI interfaces to load/unload fonts. Refer to the manufacturer manual for information on how to use the GUI interface to install/remove the fonts.

The process of transferring PCL fonts from a host computer to the printer RAM is called Downloading. The process involves three steps: (1) assign font ID; (2) copy the font in binary form to the printer RAM; (3) Make the font permanent. The first two steps must happen in one session.

Once downloaded, a PCL font occupies a portion of user memory (RAM). The number of PCL fonts that can be stored in user memory is limited only by the available user memory.

Note: fonts installed in this way reside in printer's RAM area after being made“permanent”. However, they cannot survive power outage because RAM is not a persistent storage. Some models allow you to add a hard disk to load the font at start-up. If this is not an option and you need absolute assurance of font existence, we recommend that you design your program in a way that it sends the font at the beginning of every job that requires the font.

In the following illustrations we use <esc> to represent the ESC character. This character is not printable on Windows, but can be inputted using DOS EDIT. Open the text file in EDIT, press key P while holding the CTRL key, and then release both keys. EDIT displays the ESC character using a left arrow followed by an asterisk. In Notepad, this character is displayed as a small left arrow.

<esc>*c#D

<esc>*c80D

<esc>*c5F

After the three steps are carried out, the font now resides in the printer and can be selected subsequently.

Checking Font Existence

To verify that the font is residing in the printer, you can write some code which selects the font and prints a couple of lines of text. High end printer models usually have a LCD control panel that provides a way to print PCL font list. If a LCD panel is on the printer, you can do the following to print a PCL font list, and check the font name against the list:

• Press theENTER/MENUkey on the control panel.

• Use the>or<key to select Reports and pressENTER/MENU.

• Use the>or<key to selectPCL Font Listand pressENTER/MENU. The printer exits the Menu settings and prints the list.

The image below is taken from the actual print out on a HP LaserJet 2300 model:

There are two types of font selecting: the first selects the font using its Font ID. The first selects the font by its attributes, such as symbol set, point size and typeface family value. The second type is more appropriate for selecting scalable fonts.

For example, the following statement selects the font with Font ID 80:

<esc>(80X</esc>

The statement below selects scalable font MRV Code39XSA at 16 points:

There are three parts in this statement. The first part, <esc>(0Y selects code 3 of 9 symbol set. The middle part <esc>(s16v sets font size to 16 points. Finally, the last part <esc>(s33221T selects the font with typeface family value 33221 (which corresponds to MRV Code39XSA. Typeface family value is the weakest requirement - however if multiple code 39 fonts are installed in one printer, it can be the only criteria to select the right font.

If MRV Code39XSA is not present in the printer, another code 39 font will be selected. If no code39 fonts are present, the default font is used. Therefore font selection can be used to verify if the font has been properly downloaded to the printer.

To switch back to the default font, using the command:

<esc>(3@

The remove font command takes the following form:

<esc>*c#d2F

Where # is the Font ID of the font to be removed. For example, the following command removes the font we just installed (Font ID 80):

<esc>*c80d2F

In this section we demonstrate downloading fonts with shell commands on Windows and Linux. The commands to use depend on the operating system, as well as how the printer is hooked up to the host computer.

Configuration 1: Peripheral Device

A printer can be connected to a host computer directly as a peripheral device. Under this configuration, this printer can be treated as a file with special names such as LPT1: or /dev/lpt1r. On Windows, a shared printer can be referenced using its share name, such as\\chicago\HPLaserJ(in this case, the printer is connected directly to a computer called chicago and shared through a Windows share name HPLaserJ).

Under this configuration, you can use copy/b on Windows and cat to send file to a printer:

c:\> copy /b C80D.txt +mrvcode39_4pitch.sfp +c5F.txt LPT1:
c:\> copy/b C80D.txt +mrvcode39_4pitch.sfp +c5F.txt  \\Chicago\HPLaserJ
#cat C80D.txt +mrvcode39_4pitch.sfp +c5F.txt  /dev/lpt1r

Configuration 2: Network Printer Server

When the printer is connected to a TCP/IP network directly, the best method is to send commands throughlpr command. A TCP/IP device may be identified with a full qualified DNS name, or an IP address. In our test lab, we assigned our network printer a fixed IP address 192.168.1.22, and we use this address in the examples below. Inlpr manual page, it is also referred as Printer Name.

Another name you will need is Queue Name. The queue names are names assigned to the “processors” in the print server. Many print servers and network printers hardcode their queue names. Some allow you to define your own queue. On HP JetDirect printer servers, the raw PCL queues are named as raw, raw1, raw2 and raw3. In this article we use rawas the queue name.

Note thatlpr command only accepts 1 file at a time. However, the step1 and step2 commands must be sent in one stream, otherwise the printer discards them altogether. As a result, you will need to merge those three files into one first. On Windows, you can use copy command:

copy /b C80D.txt +mrvcode39_4pitch.sfp +c5F.txt total.bin

On Linux/Unix platforms, use cat command:

cat c80D.txt mrvcode39_4pitch.sfp c5F.txt > total.bin

Now we can send these files (Windows):

lpr -S 192.168.1.22 -P raw -ol total.bin lpr -S 192.168.1.22 -P raw -ol data.txt

You need to replace the IP address, the queue name and the file name with the appropriate ones in your environment.

On Linux/UNIX platforms, things are more complicated. The configuration varies from platform to platform. Generally you need to set up the printer first. On RedHat Linux, this can be done using printtool. You assign a printer name (queue name) in the configuration, and you use this name in lpr command. Assume that the name is HPPrinter, the lpr command on RH Linux becomes:

lpr -P HPPrinter -o raw total.bin lpr -P HPPrinter -o raw data.txt

Consult your manual or help files for detailed information. The following description and screen capture is taken from Microsoft Word 2003.

To save a document with fonts embedded, select Save As... from File Menu, then click on Tools and select Options... to access the dialog show below.

In the Save dialog, check Embed true type fonts option.

Adobe PDF Writer (or Distiller in earlier versions) provides font embedding capabilities. When generating PDF files, select Embed Fonts from PDF Settings menu, and click on Fonts tab.

In the dialog, check Embed All Fonts, or select the font from the list.

You are installing the full version without first removing the trial version. The installation goes smoothly without any error messages. However, after the installation you discovered that no fonts are present in the product folder.

The case can happen when the fonts are in use by other application, such as Word or Crystal Reports. It is not reliable to rely upon Windows to tell if the font is in use. In many cases, Windows caches the font and allows the installation to go through. However, the trial version font is removed, but the new version can't be copied.

It is strongly recommended that you explicitly remove the trial version before installing the new version. At minimum, log off and log back to install the full version. In this way the fonts will be properly replaced because the existing font is not cached.

If you run into the problem, follow the steps below:

A .Net program that calls Barcode ActiveX worked fine on 32-bit Windows. However, it does not start on Vista 64-bit, or throws an unhandled exception. The error code is REGDB_E_CLASSNOTREG.

The Barcode ActiveX control has been copied to the target machine and registered correctly.

By default, Visual Studio compiles .Net program under “Any CPU” setting, which generates x64 executable on a 64-bit PC and x86 executable on a 32-bit PC. However, Morovia Barcode ActiveX 3.x binary are x86 format only and can't be loaded into a x64 executable. Therefore, when running on x64 Windows, the .net run time throws an exception that complains that it can not locate Barcode ActiveX control.

When compiling programs that calls 32-bit DLLs, including COM objects, change the target CPU from “Any CPU” to “x86” and rebuild the program.

To change the target CPU, perform the following steps (in Visual Studio 2005):

This behavior is by design.

In design mode, first make sure that Form Controls toolbar is visible with View → Form Controls Toolbar (Alt-V+F). In the toolbar, click on ActiveX Control (Ole Control). Draw a rectangle and at the completion, the program pops up a list of controls:

Right click on Properties and you can modify properties there. You might want to set AutoSize to True so that the barcode drew on the screen reflect the real size, not the rectangle you just drew.

In order to display barcodes in reports, you need to do more. The next section explains how to add barcode in a report.

In order for the barcode to appear on a report, you need to embed it in the table with type General. Open Table Designer, add a field called Barcode, and set the type to General.

In the design mode, first make sure that Report Controls Toolbar is visible with View → Report Controls Toolbar (Alt-V+o). In the toolbar, click on Picture/OLE Bound Control and draw a rectangle.

In the subsequent dialog, select Control source type as General field name. In the control source box, enter table1.Barcode. This is the field name that we created in the first step. You may need to change it if you use a different table or field name.

Now we need to add code to initialize this control. Right click on the report, and select Data Environment. In the Data Environment windows, right click and select Code... to pop up the code window. Override BeforeOpenTables procedure in Object Dataenvironment.

The code is listed below for copy/paste:

frmTemp = createobject("Form")
with frmTemp
  .AddObject("BarcodeCtrl","OLEBoundControl")
  .BarcodeCtrl.ControlSource = "Table1.Barcode"
  && bind it to general field so we will be able to edit properties of
  && the control inside of the general field
  && prepare bar code for each record
  scan all
    && create a barcode in general field
    APPEND GENERAL Table1.Barcode CLASS ("Morovia.BarcodeLite")
    && update the control by the current general field content
    .BarcodeCtrl.Refresh
    && Assign properties to this barcode control.
    && Here we assigned Symbology (Code128), message,
    && ShowComment and BarHeight (250 mils)
    .BarcodeCtrl.Object.AutoSize = 1
    .BarcodeCtrl.Object.Symbology = 5
    .BarcodeCtrl.Object.message = table1.ID
    .BarcodeCtrl.Object.ShowComment = 0
    .BarcodeCtrl.Object.BarHeight = 250

    .BarcodeCtrl.Refresh
  endscan
  go top in table1
  .BarcodeCtrl.Refresh
endwith

release frmTemp 

If you are using Morovia Barcode ActiveX Professional, do not forget to change this line:

APPEND GENERAL Table1.Barcode CLASS ("Morovia.BarcodeLite")

to

APPEND GENERAL Table1.Barcode CLASS ("Morovia.BarcodeActiveX") 

Now save the work. click on Print Preview button to view the report. You may notice the "demo" text on the report because we created this example with trial version software. It won' appear if the full version software is installed.

To download files from the Adobe file library:

To view a PDF file, open it in an Acrobat viewer (e.g., Acrobat Reader). Acrobat Reader enables you to view, navigate, and print PDF files on several platforms. Acrobat Reader is available for free from all Adobe at http://www.adobe.com.

If your operating system is Windows XP or above, you do not need any third party utilities. Simply double click the zip file and choose Extract from the file menu. In other Windows platforms, you need to download a trial version of WinZip (http://www.winzip.com), WinRar(http://www.rarlab.com) or PKZip (http://www.pkware.com).

You exported the barcode to one of the bitmap image formats (BMP, GIF, TIF and PNG). The bar code is OK, but the text is not present in the image created. The text is displayed correctly on the screen, and barcode printing is working just fine.

In order to accurately render the barcode image, Monterey Barcode Creator 3.x searches for a printer driver installed in the computer that matches the resolution specified. Once it finds a match, it loads the printer driver and uses the printer driver to rasterize the image.

Unfortunately, not all printer drivers are function as designed, and some printer drivers are badly written. Consequently it brings strange issues.

To work around the problem, you can either rasterize the image under screen resolution, or move the bad driver down to the chain so that a 'good' driver is used instead.

You connect barcode scanner to the computer with Italian keyboard layout through a keyboard wedge (such as USB interface). You encode 123-356-0940 in data matrix or Codabar, which is capable of encoding hyphen characters. You received the result as 123'356'0940.

Punctuation characters often have different virtual key codes among different locales. To enter punctuation characters correctly through a keyboard wedge interface, the scanner and the computer must use the same keyboard layout.

The Keyboard Country in your scanner must match the one on your computer with keyboard wedge interface. In this example case, you should configure Keyboard Country to Italy. This is usually done by scanning several barcodes in your scanner manual. For detailed information, see scanner manual for details.

This behavior is by design.

Keyboard-wedge scanners emulate keyboard when reading barcodes. Four possible Windows messages are sent - WM_KEYDOWN, WM_KEYUP, WM_SYSKEYDOWN and WM_SYSKEYUP. Each message carries a “Virtual Key Code” that indicates which key is pressed. These messages are further processed through keyboard driver installed into WM_CHAR and WM_SYSCHAR messages, which are received by the application who owns the focus.

Generally speaking, each key on the keyboard has a virtual key code. However, not all printable ASCII values have their corresponding key codes. For example, Windows must rely on the status of Cap Locks and Shift to determine if KEY_A should be be mapped to capital case A or lower case a. Under this design, all keyboards have the same mechanics, and the differences are the key caps and corresponding keyboard drivers.

The “Universal” keys (i.e. always translated in the same way by keyboard drivers) are:

TAB, SPACE, 0-9, A-Z

and a number of function keys (F1-F12, Shift, Ctrl and so on).

Therefore, you may consider the fact when designing your application by restricting the character set of your data to digits and letters, if your application is going to be used in multiple locales.

Punctuation keys are often arranged differently among locales and therefore have different virtual key codes. Therefore to emulate these keys correctly the barcode scanners must be configured under the correct keyboard layout. If you use Italian keyboards, you must set the scanner's Keyboard Country to Italy in order to read punctuation letters correctly.

Figure 1. Keyboard Layout: U.S. vs Italian

The figure above shows the right top portion of a standard US keyboard vs an Italian one. The minus key on a US keyboard corresponds to the single quote key on an Italian keyboard. A scanner configured as US keyboard emulation (which is default in most scanners) sends this key code to Windows upon reading barcode, and the Italian keyboard driver translates it into a single quote character.

To avoid these translation issues, you may consider using RSC-232 interface and read the data directly from the port, or through a wedge software that supports key translation.

Conceptually using two dimensional barcode fonts with Crystal Report is no different than using other fonts. In practice, there are a couple of issues need to work out. The major issue associated is the length limit imposed by Crystal Reports: no formula field can have more than 255 characters.

To add PDF417 barcodes to Crystal Report, you need to use Morovia 2D Fontware UFL. Native Crystal Reports formula is not supported.

We use Crystal Reports version 9 for tutorial. If you are working on an earlier version the steps outlined still apply. You are authorized to use the UFL provided by Morovia for free as long as you own a perpetual license. You are also allowed to distribute this UFL with your application with a developer license.

The PDF417 UFL component is included in every PDF417 Fontware package. There is no separate download of this UFL component. If you posses a valid license to any of 2D barcode font but can not locate this component, write to <support@morovia.com> to request one.

The UFL functions are automatically available to Crystal Reports once the component is installed in your computer. The following functions are added to Crystal Reports:

Both function takes a parameter called trunk_no. Because Crystal Reports do not allow any formula fields having more than 255 characters, you need to call multiple times of encoding functions to receive different trunks of the result. The trunk_no starts from 1. Each trunk holds 200 characters.

In the following tutorial we will start with a blank report. In the report we created several database fields. We want to be able to encode the data field of a table.

Once you finish the report design, you can distribute your report application with Crystal run time files, barcode fonts and the UFL library.

This article demonstrates how to add linear barcodes (Code39, Code128, UPC_A etc.) to Microsoft Reporting Service. The method described here uses the font-based approach. Deployment is also included.

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Service has gained momentum in enterprise reporting market. SQL Server Reporting service includes a Report Designer and Report Server. The Report Designer works with Visual Studio 2003 and 2005, allowing developers to quickly design and deploy a report.

Before you start, first make sure that the PHP is enabled on your application, and the version is 5.0 or above.

Now create a directory to store image files. In this example, we use c:/Inetpub/WebAppData. This directory must be writable to the user that web server runs - in IIS it is usually IUSR_MACHINENAME.

Next we need to decide how to efficiently retrieve an image if it is already created. Morovia Barcode ActiveX provides several dozen options. In most cases you probably only need to change one or two per request. Let's assume that in your application all barcodes have the same properties except message (the data to be encoded). You can then use the value of message as the image file. A better solution is to create a hash value, and use this value as the file name, as you do not need to worry about escaping characters not allowed by the file system, and retrieval is likely faster.

$md5_string = md5($dataToEncode);
$filepath = "c:/inetpub/WebAppData" . "/" . $md5_string . ".png";
if (file_exists($filepath)) {
    /* do nothing */
} else {
    try {
        $encoder = new COM("Morovia.BarcodeActiveX");
        $encoder->Symbology = 5; /* Code 128 */
        $encoder->Message = $dataToEncode;
        ... /* set other default properties */
        $encoder->NarrowBarWidth = 20; /* X dimension */
        $encoder->BarHeight = 500;   /* 0.5 inch height */
        $encoder->ShowComment = false; /* disable comment */
        $encoder->TexAlignment  = 3; /* align human readable justify */
        $encoder->RasterImageResolution = 96;
        $encoder->ExportImage($filepath, 5); /* 5 - PNG image format */
    }
    catch (Exception $e) {
        $com_success = false;
        $error_msg = $e->getMessage();
    }
}

In the code above, we invoke Barcode ActiveX when we are unable to find an existing file that matches the request by searching the image directory based on the md5 hash value on the data to be encoded.

If you are using Barcode Lite, change the ProgID to Morovia.BarcodeLite.

Note that you must set Symbology first before changing Message property, as different barcode formats have different rules on its encoding character sets and default values.

You can place the code in the front end script, or at the back end script. We choose front end script because if there is an error in barcode image creating process, we can handle it by not emitting the “img” tag, as the code below:

if ($com_success) {
  printf("<img src=\"getimage.php?file=%s.png\"/>\n", $md5_string);
} else {
  printf("<p style='color:red'>Error in getting image(%s).</p>\n",
            $error_msg);
}

If the barcode image requested was successfully created, the code emits IMG tag, which links to the back end script (we will talk about this soon). Otherwise it prints an error message.

In the backend, the getimage.php script searches the image directory, and if found, it reads the image data and sends to the browser.

/* getimage.php requires a parameter entered through GET. */

$file_string = $_GET['id'];
if (strlen($file_string) <= 0 ) {
    header ("HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found");
    return;
}

$image_dir = "c:/inetpub/WebAppData";

$filepath = $image_dir . "/" . $file_string;

if (file_exists($filepath)) {
    $fm = @fopen($filepath, "rb");
    if (!$fm) {
        header ("HTTP/1.0 505 Internal server error");
        return;
    }

    header("Content-Type: image/png");

    $begin = 0;
    $end   = filesize($filepath);

    fseek($fm, $begin, 0);
    $cur = $begin;

    while(!feof($fm) && $cur < $end && (connection_status()==0) ) {
        print fread($fm, min(1024*16, $end-$cur));
        $cur += 1024*16;
    }
} else {
    header ("HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found");
    return;
}