MkII Posted October 21, 2008 Posted October 21, 2008 Hi We have a very old application that sends escape codes to a printer that needs the printer to interpret these as a barcode font. Currently an HP LJ 2200 with a barcode DIMM installed does the job, but it's on it's way out. The cheapest replacement HP could come up with was as LJ4250 plus another DIMM. totalling about £900. This is way over the top, we want to spend ~ £400 tops. Anyone have any suggestions? (I've tried free barcode font's and PCL5/6 & PS drivers on a LJ3005dn without success)
tom_newton Posted October 21, 2008 Posted October 21, 2008 You might wrangle something with this... Barcode Writer in Pure PostScript and a bit of perl?
MkII Posted October 21, 2008 Author Posted October 21, 2008 Thanks very much for that Tom. If I could do a bit of Perl I might get somewhere! Any other suggestions?
Nick_Parker Posted October 21, 2008 Posted October 21, 2008 We use a free font called "Free3of9" or something to that effect... You simple enclose your code in *'s which get read as the start and stop characters by the scanner, ie. *1234* It works and has worked with all the books in our library and has been read by all our barcode scanners without a problem. Edit: We are able to print these barcodes from any laser printer and they are readable (haven't tried any deskjets)
MkII Posted October 21, 2008 Author Posted October 21, 2008 Thanks very much Nick I did try that. The barcodes print as ** but not barcodes. This bespoke application produces the escape codes, nothing easy like Word
MkII Posted October 23, 2008 Author Posted October 23, 2008 i spoke with the developers and they're willing to look into adding Barcode Writer in Pure Postscript - Yay! - so thanks again Tom. Fingers crossed!
srochford Posted October 23, 2008 Posted October 23, 2008 How old is this app? It sounds like it dates back to pre-Windows 3.1 when it was difficult to print different fonts except by storing them in the actual printer and sending commands (often as ESC codes) saying "change to font XXXX" It's not hard work to have something which just uses a Truetype barcode font and, as Nick says, you can get a code 39 font free Only issue might be if you're not using Code 39 (there are lots of barcode fonts) but even if you had to buy the font it shouldn't cost much and you can then use pretty much any printer (laser works best)
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