What barcode program?

[Tjalfe]

My boss has been asking me to look into printing barcodes for all of our products instead of the current hand written serial number.
The question is, who makes a decent barcode reader, and is there software available for cheap ( free) which allows us to print barcodes on standard label paper, or do we need a special label printer?

[spadnos]

A Barcode font and word processor (or something like Corel Draw) will do fine for labels. The fonts can be expensive, and you need to know which code type to use (there are about 100 different "bar codes").

The fonts can also be free, if you get them with something like Corel Draw.

(Have I mentioned Corel Draw yet?)

As for scanners, most of them do all of the codes (or at least a large subset of them). You just need to choose the type (hand scan / auto scanning / auto detect / # of scans per minute ...) and cost (from $100 - $2000).

Label printers can be a good thing, since they are there to do single labels or sequences of them. Zebra is the best known name, and exceedingly expensive. The printers usually have software that allows you to configure one or more label types, then the printer can do sequential numbers on its own (the software says "a decimal number starting at 1000 goes here"...)

There are a lot of options. Most industrial ones are pretty expensive. You can get by without those if you have people with 1/3 (or more) of a brain using the system.

- Steve

[cbman]

We used to use a Zebra system at work... it worked good but for us it was unnecessary as we now just use the barcodes on the products from the factory

[spadnos]

Originally posted by cbman
We used to use a Zebra system at work... it worked good but for us it was unnecessary as we now just use the barcodes on the products from the factory

Of course, the printer is important if you ARE the factory ...

- Steve

[cbman]

LOL... good point

[leech]

*cough* Me, ever the linux advocate....

There are three programs that pop up under 'apt-cache search barcode' for debian;

barcode - Creates barcodes in .ps format

ean13 - Creates an EAN - 13 or UPC barcode in .xbm format

kbarcode - A KDE Barcode Creation and Printing Application.

Leech

[Marshmallowman]

We do a bit of testing and configuring for some barcode stuff for our customers.

It is easy and effective enough to just print label's using a normal printer and barcode fonts that are free on the internet.

But if you are printing a lot, then the investment of a dedicated label printer is easy to justify, as it prints directly on to sticky labels and is reliable and it has the bonus that it has built in lable fonts.

Right now I am playing around with a pdt1100 hand scanner from symbol, it seems quite handy, it has a built in OS and the standard scaning software module is very easy to use. It is good for 15 character bar codes, but if you get someone or write your own, you proably do it barcodes as long as you want. Its stores your scan codes and quantity's which upload/download later via serial or IR.

Some hand scanners can print labels as well, this can be very handy as you can print them as you need them.(but they are expensive)

And as said previously Zebra is probably the best one's we have seen so far. They can be hooked up to serial,lpt or usb.

But very cheap "wedge" scanners are available that just fit between the keyboard and your PC, and no software is needed, just go to the field wher you want the bardcode string and press scan.

[Beachman]

It all depends on your needs. You didn't say how many labels you would be printing (number of products/skus, quantities required per sku). You didn't mention your Host System (ERP system). Does it need to be an integerated solution?

1. Light printing can be done with a word processor and a TTF barcode font. (The font can be free.) This is not really a system suitable for distribution.

2. Label printers can range from $600 to $1800. For light/medium duty printing, the Zebra 27XX series printers are good. For high quality high speed printing, I would suggest looking into Intermec 3400 series.

3. Most printers have a serial or parallel interface. I would recommend getting a printer with a parallel interface so you can hook it up to a Jet Direct and then you have a Network Printer.

4. Label printers don't require additional additional software (or fonts) in order to print labels. The printer has build in software to print barcodes and text. Typically you juse send plain text to the printer, the printer translates it into a label and then spits it out. Pretty simple. All printers will have a programming document describing the printer language. Remember: this language is something you can program in Notepad.

5. There are pleanty of scanners out there. I guess it just depends on your needs. Do you need real time communications? Do you need batch terminals? What do you plan on using them for? Do they need to be integrated with your host system? Someone already mentioned a wedge scanner works off of the keyboard port; so it should be easy to integrate with your host system. It all depends on your needs -- why do you want to scan the barcodes? When will you be scanning them?

6. Do you have warehouse management software? Most of these will have barcoding options.

I haven't reread this message so I hope it makes sense

[efty]

Avery Design Pro will work fine for a few bar codes. It offers database connectivity via odbc which can prove really helpfull. And it is simple to use.

For scanner look at the following brands: SYMBOL , PSC, Metrologic. If you are going for a hand scanner make sure you buy a laser scanner and not a sucky ccd.