Embedding BMP graphic in PCL

[ihatemash]

I’m working on a project that requires printing a 1D barcode onto a PCL form. The tool I use to generate the 1D barcode creates a BMP image of the barcode. I need to programmatically embed the BMP image into the PCL form before sending the form to the printer. How is this done?

 

[jlasman]

Go to my website and have a look at the manual for my MKPCL program that does what you want.

But can't you just download a soft font of the barcode and print it directly? Which barcode symbology?

Jim Asman

http://www.spectracolorservices.com

 

[ihatemash]

Thanks for the fast response and I will take a look at the website. Not sure if a soft font will work. I'll give you more information on our process. We have form template files in PCL format. Our software determines which template to use and injects the data into the template resulting in a temporary PCL file. The temp file is then either printed to a PCL printer or converted to EMF or PDF depending on what printing options the user selected. A new requirement has been introduced stating that we must support 1D barcodes. The barcode will contain some of the data that we add to the PCL file. I.e. the barcode is not a static barcode. It must be determined at runtime. We have looked at the IDAutomation tools but they return a BMP of the barcode not a PCL representation. We are using a very old tool for the 2D barcodes we support but it returns the PCL representation which allows us to just append it to the temp PCL file.

 

[jlasman]

Is this on windows, unix or ???

Do you intend to support ALL 1D barcodes, selected ones, or a specific one.

I have seen in the past where the barcode migrates from the PCL file to the PDF, but while it looks OK in the PDF, it won't scan if you print it. Going to a BMP along the way has some merit.

Jim Asman

http://www.spectracolorservices.com

 

[ihatemash]

1). Windows only.
2). currently we need to support interleaved 2 of 5 but may need to support code 39 in the future.

 

[ihatemash]

Do you have a DLL or .NET assembly for MKPCL? Can the input/output be an in-memory stream instead of a file on disk?

 

[jlasman]

No. No.

Sorry!

Jim Asman

http://www.spectracolorservices.com

 

[jlasman]

Go to

http://www.pagetch.com

and see if you can find a solution from them.

Jim Asman

http://www.spectracolorservices.com

 

[ihatemash]

Thanks for your time and help. I think i will pass on the pagetech option

 

[pcltools]

Our tools can insert a raster graphic anywhere into any level of PCL3-5 or XL print stream. And, we can edit a PCL print stream by inserting the appropriate 1D barcode as vector line/box draw objects.

Option V of our PCLTool SDK does this best using PCLXForm.exe with a custom .tpt script.

Regards,
Bob Pooley
bp@pagetech.com