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#1
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Barcodes
I need to generate id badges for a customer with a barcode
on it. I then need to use a barcode reader to scan these badges and store the reads into a table. I can handle all the access programming part but I have never worked with barcodes and readers at all. This is a small client (long term care facility) with 100 or so patients. The patients go to the cafeteria to eat and when they do this, they scan their badge. This kicks off billing to the patient that they got a meal but it also tells the management if a patient doesn't come to dinner so they know to go figure out where the heck he/she is. Anyway, I think I need a font so I can print the badge from my access application. I have looked up barcodes on the internet and there are thousands of different things with a very wide cost difference. I am not printing millions of bar codes for products. I just need to print badges out as new patients come into the facility. I think need an affordable reader. I think a keyboard wedge one will work fine. I can set up my application to receive the data and do what it needs to do. The reader has to be pretty durable though. It will be used for each meal of the day and probably for 100 people or so for each meal and the quality of employee using this reader will not be the highest so it will probably get banged around a lot. So it needs to be pretty tough. Any help with this solution from someone who has experience with this would be much appreciated. Some of the font packages I have seen are $700 or higher and I just need to print an occasional id card. Thanks in advance. |
#2
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Dear TarponZeke:
The following link will give you lots of information: http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/barcode.htm Among Tony Toew's links on this page you can find a link to a free 3 of 9 barcode font. I've used a Dymo Labelwriter and a laser printer to generate barcode labels, and they have worked fine with my wedge scanner. Remember that you probably need to insert an asterisk before and after your barcode number when you use the 3 of 9 font... HTH Fred Boer "TarponZeke" wrote in message ... I need to generate id badges for a customer with a barcode on it. I then need to use a barcode reader to scan these badges and store the reads into a table. I can handle all the access programming part but I have never worked with barcodes and readers at all. This is a small client (long term care facility) with 100 or so patients. The patients go to the cafeteria to eat and when they do this, they scan their badge. This kicks off billing to the patient that they got a meal but it also tells the management if a patient doesn't come to dinner so they know to go figure out where the heck he/she is. Anyway, I think I need a font so I can print the badge from my access application. I have looked up barcodes on the internet and there are thousands of different things with a very wide cost difference. I am not printing millions of bar codes for products. I just need to print badges out as new patients come into the facility. I think need an affordable reader. I think a keyboard wedge one will work fine. I can set up my application to receive the data and do what it needs to do. The reader has to be pretty durable though. It will be used for each meal of the day and probably for 100 people or so for each meal and the quality of employee using this reader will not be the highest so it will probably get banged around a lot. So it needs to be pretty tough. Any help with this solution from someone who has experience with this would be much appreciated. Some of the font packages I have seen are $700 or higher and I just need to print an occasional id card. Thanks in advance. |
#3
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you may want to look at this site. http://www.azalea.com/
I've worked with barcodes quite a bit with other apps, but not Access. Printing should not be a problem. Have you thought of printing to an Avery label, which can be stuck to a "badge" of some sort? hope this helps JMorrell "TarponZeke" wrote: I need to generate id badges for a customer with a barcode on it. I then need to use a barcode reader to scan these badges and store the reads into a table. I can handle all the access programming part but I have never worked with barcodes and readers at all. This is a small client (long term care facility) with 100 or so patients. The patients go to the cafeteria to eat and when they do this, they scan their badge. This kicks off billing to the patient that they got a meal but it also tells the management if a patient doesn't come to dinner so they know to go figure out where the heck he/she is. Anyway, I think I need a font so I can print the badge from my access application. I have looked up barcodes on the internet and there are thousands of different things with a very wide cost difference. I am not printing millions of bar codes for products. I just need to print badges out as new patients come into the facility. I think need an affordable reader. I think a keyboard wedge one will work fine. I can set up my application to receive the data and do what it needs to do. The reader has to be pretty durable though. It will be used for each meal of the day and probably for 100 people or so for each meal and the quality of employee using this reader will not be the highest so it will probably get banged around a lot. So it needs to be pretty tough. Any help with this solution from someone who has experience with this would be much appreciated. Some of the font packages I have seen are $700 or higher and I just need to print an occasional id card. Thanks in advance. |
#4
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For reading bar codes into an Access application, you have two
choices. Most bar code readers are available with one of two output options. The first option is called "Keyboard Wedge" output where you unplug your keyboard, plug the bar code reader into the keyboard port on your PC and then plug your keyboard into the bar code reader. This arrangement makes the bar code reader appear as it it were simply a second keyboard. Your original keyboard continues to work as normal however when you read a bar code, the data encoded in the bar code appears to any application running on your PC as if it were typed in. The keyboard wedge interface is extremely simple however it has a few drawbacks. If you scan a bar code, the cursor has to be in the correct input field in the correct application otherwise you end up reading bar code data into whatever application has the focus. This can cause all sorts of potential problems if the cursor is not in the right place when the bar code is scanned. The keyboard output also is limited in that you cannot modify the data in any way before sending it into the program that is to receive the data. For example, if you needed to parse a bar code message up into pieces or remove some of a bar code message or add in a date or time stamp you would not be able to with a normal keyboard wedge reader. The other possible output option is to get a bar code reader with an RS232 or "Serial" interface. With these types of bar code readers, you connect the reader to an available serial port on the back of your PC. You would then need a program called a "Software Wedge" to take the data from the bar code reader and feed it to the application where you want the data to go. The disadvantage to this approach is that it is a little more complex however you gain much more control over how and where your data ends up when you read a bar code. With a Software Wedge, you can control exactly where the data goes in the target application and you can also perform all sorts of modifications on the data before it is sent to the application. TAL Tehchnologies sells a product called WinWedge which is a Software Wedge for Windows. Visit: http://www.taltech.com/products/winwedge.html for more information about WinWedge. TAL also sells a very high quality line of bar code laser scanners at very reasonable prices. All their scanners are available with either the keyboard wedge output or RS232 output. For scanners see: http://www.taltech.com/products/bc_reader.html This web site is also an extremely good place to obtain information about bar coding in general be sure to look in the Resources section of the site for a bar code tutorial. For printing bar codes from Access, you would be best off using a bar code ActiveX control like the one fromTAL Technologies at the following URL: http://www.taltech.com/products/activex_barcodes.html If you need to print bar codes, I would recommend that you download the demo of the TAL Bar Code ActiveX control from the above URL and take a look at the sample Access database that is provide with the demo. You can also use bar code fonts to do the job and many are available for free on the web however you will definitely want to test your bar codes by printing them to the particular printer that you will be using and then scanning them with the bar code scanner that you purchase. Fonts are notorius for producing very poor quality bar codes that are difficult to read. They also offer very little flexibility in size. Three things that you should always do when using bar code fonts are to test, test, and test again. On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 07:58:08 -0700, "TarponZeke" wrote: I need to generate id badges for a customer with a barcode on it. I then need to use a barcode reader to scan these badges and store the reads into a table. I can handle all the access programming part but I have never worked with barcodes and readers at all. This is a small client (long term care facility) with 100 or so patients. The patients go to the cafeteria to eat and when they do this, they scan their badge. This kicks off billing to the patient that they got a meal but it also tells the management if a patient doesn't come to dinner so they know to go figure out where the heck he/she is. Anyway, I think I need a font so I can print the badge from my access application. I have looked up barcodes on the internet and there are thousands of different things with a very wide cost difference. I am not printing millions of bar codes for products. I just need to print badges out as new patients come into the facility. I think need an affordable reader. I think a keyboard wedge one will work fine. I can set up my application to receive the data and do what it needs to do. The reader has to be pretty durable though. It will be used for each meal of the day and probably for 100 people or so for each meal and the quality of employee using this reader will not be the highest so it will probably get banged around a lot. So it needs to be pretty tough. Any help with this solution from someone who has experience with this would be much appreciated. Some of the font packages I have seen are $700 or higher and I just need to print an occasional id card. Thanks in advance. |
#5
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"Thomas Lutz" wrote in message ... For reading bar codes into an Access application, you have two choices. Most bar code readers are available with one of two output options. The first option is called "Keyboard Wedge" output where you unplug your keyboard, plug the bar code reader into the keyboard port on your PC and then plug your keyboard into the bar code reader. This arrangement makes the bar code reader appear as it it were simply a second keyboard. Your original keyboard continues to work as normal however when you read a bar code, the data encoded in the bar code appears to any application running on your PC as if it were typed in. The keyboard wedge interface is extremely simple however it has a few drawbacks. If you scan a bar code, the cursor has to be in the correct input field in the correct application otherwise you end up reading bar code data into whatever application has the focus. This can cause all sorts of potential problems if the cursor is not in the right place when the bar code is scanned. The keyboard output also is limited in that you cannot modify the data in any way before sending it into the program that is to receive the data. For example, if you needed to parse a bar code message up into pieces or remove some of a bar code message or add in a date or time stamp you would not be able to with a normal keyboard wedge reader. The other possible output option is to get a bar code reader with an RS232 or "Serial" interface. With these types of bar code readers, you connect the reader to an available serial port on the back of your PC. You would then need a program called a "Software Wedge" to take the data from the bar code reader and feed it to the application where you want the data to go. The disadvantage to this approach is that it is a little more complex however you gain much more control over how and where your data ends up when you read a bar code. With a Software Wedge, you can control exactly where the data goes in the target application and you can also perform all sorts of modifications on the data before it is sent to the application. TAL Tehchnologies sells a product called WinWedge which is a Software Wedge for Windows. Visit: http://www.taltech.com/products/winwedge.html for more information about WinWedge. TAL also sells a very high quality line of bar code laser scanners at very reasonable prices. All their scanners are available with either the keyboard wedge output or RS232 output. For scanners see: http://www.taltech.com/products/bc_reader.html This web site is also an extremely good place to obtain information about bar coding in general be sure to look in the Resources section of the site for a bar code tutorial. For printing bar codes from Access, you would be best off using a bar code ActiveX control like the one fromTAL Technologies at the following URL: http://www.taltech.com/products/activex_barcodes.html If you need to print bar codes, I would recommend that you download the demo of the TAL Bar Code ActiveX control from the above URL and take a look at the sample Access database that is provide with the demo. You can also use bar code fonts to do the job and many are available for free on the web however you will definitely want to test your bar codes by printing them to the particular printer that you will be using and then scanning them with the bar code scanner that you purchase. Fonts are notorius for producing very poor quality bar codes that are difficult to read. They also offer very little flexibility in size. Three things that you should always do when using bar code fonts are to test, test, and test again. On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 07:58:08 -0700, "TarponZeke" wrote: I need to generate id badges for a customer with a barcode on it. I then need to use a barcode reader to scan these badges and store the reads into a table. I can handle all the access programming part but I have never worked with barcodes and readers at all. This is a small client (long term care facility) with 100 or so patients. The patients go to the cafeteria to eat and when they do this, they scan their badge. This kicks off billing to the patient that they got a meal but it also tells the management if a patient doesn't come to dinner so they know to go figure out where the heck he/she is. Anyway, I think I need a font so I can print the badge from my access application. I have looked up barcodes on the internet and there are thousands of different things with a very wide cost difference. I am not printing millions of bar codes for products. I just need to print badges out as new patients come into the facility. I think need an affordable reader. I think a keyboard wedge one will work fine. I can set up my application to receive the data and do what it needs to do. The reader has to be pretty durable though. It will be used for each meal of the day and probably for 100 people or so for each meal and the quality of employee using this reader will not be the highest so it will probably get banged around a lot. So it needs to be pretty tough. Any help with this solution from someone who has experience with this would be much appreciated. Some of the font packages I have seen are $700 or higher and I just need to print an occasional id card. Thanks in advance. what think my E-mail address is |
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