Special Considerations when Pasting Bar Codes From B-Coder

B-Coder has been thoroughly tested with a wide variety of Windows application programs as well as different printing devices and in all cases it produces extremely high quality bar codes. There are a few minor technical considerations when used with some programs. The topics below discuss these considerations in detail.

Pasting Bar Codes into Office97 Programs and all 32 bit versions of Pagemaker:

B-Coder works extremely well with all versions of Pagemaker and all Microsoft Office applications however there is one important step that you will need to follow in order to insure that all your bar codes will print perfectly from the 32 bit versions of these programs.

The default graphic format used by B-Coder is the standard Windows Metafile format. (B-Coder also supports many other graphic file formats however the standard Metafile format is ideal for creating high quality bar code graphics). In all 32 bit versions of Windows, Microsoft has added support for a new metafile format called "Enhanced Metafile". Most 32 bit Windows programs (including Word 97 and Pagemaker 6.5) fully support both the WMF and the EMF file formats however Word 97, Excel 97 and all 32 bit versions of Pagemaker automatically convert metafiles to Enhanced Metafiles. When you paste bar codes from B-Coder into these programs by selecting "Paste" from their EDIT menu, the bar code will be automatically converted to an Enhanced Metafile and subsequently may not print correctly. For these applications you must select "Paste Special" and in the "Paste Special" dialog box choose either "Picture" or "Metafile" (instead of "Enhanced Metafile") as the format. If you paste bar codes from B-Coder into Word 97 and Pagemaker 6.5 using this technique, you will get perfect bar codes every time. Microsoft Access 97 does not support the Enhanced Metafile format therefore you can simply paste bar codes into Access from B-Coder as you normally would by select Edit & Paste.

Technical note:
The Windows Metafile format is ideal for creating bar codes however the new Enhanced Metafile format has several major design flaws that render it inadequate for creating extremely high resoliution graphics (as required when printing bar codes). Microsoft is purported to be working on a solution to the problems  and it is expected that all will be corrected in the next release of Windows. Until the problems are rectified, B-Coder will not support the Enhanced Metafile graphic format. As soon as they are, we will offer an update to B-Coder that fully supports Enhanced Metafiles.
Please note that Microsoft has made it clear that it has no intention of ever removing support for the standard Metafile format therefore you can rest assured that any bar codes that you create today with B-Coder will always print perfectly with any future versions of Windows.

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Pasting Bar Codes Into Programs That Work With BitMaps

When cutting and pasting bar codes from B-Coder into other programs, the best graphics format to use is the Metafile format. Metafile images are device independent, scaleable images that consist of drawing instructions used internally by Windows to reproduce an image in a manner that uses the highest resolution of the device that the image is being printed on. Because most printers have a much higher resolution than most computer monitors, the printed version of a Metafile will almost always have a much higher degree of detail than the same image when it is displayed on your computer's monitor. Bitmaps on the other hand do not automatically use the highest resolution possible when printed and therefore the printed output of a bitmap will retain the same (lower) quality as that of your monitor.

When you paste a Metafile bar code produced by B-Coder into a graphics or drawing program that only has the capability of working with bitmap files (.BMP) such as the PaintBrush program that comes with Windows, your bar code will be automatically converted from a Windows Metafile format to a bitmap format. During this conversion process, the bar code will most likely be deformed and thus it may be unreadable when it is eventually printed. A possible solution to this problem is to increase the Narrow Bar Width value and avoid the use of any scaling features in the target application (i.e. SHRINK & GROW in PaintBrush). Acceptable bar codes can be produced with these types of programs but their output should always be tested for readability.

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Pasting Bar Codes Into A Spreadsheet

A minor problem with spreadsheets is that they normally display and print a grid pattern around all cells. Cell grid lines can be confused by a bar code reader as part of a bar code. This problem can easily be corrected simply by turning grid lines off before printing the spreadsheet. In Excel this is done by selecting "Options" and "Display..." from Excel's main menu and then clearing the "Grid lines" check box.

Another small problem is that most spreadsheet programs will automatically draw a border around images both while displayed on screen and when printed on a printer. If there is no leading or trailing "Quiet Zone" at either end of your bar code, the border appears to a bar code reader as part of the bar code and thus it will probably be unreadable. The easiest way to avoid this problem is to enable the Include Quiet Zones option in B-Coder's Preferences menu. Another solution is to remove the unwanted border with a formatting command in the spreadsheet. In Microsoft Excel you can get rid of borders around graphics by selecting "Format" & "Patterns" from Excel's main menu. This will display a dialog box where you can instruct Excel to remove a border from a selected graphic.

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Printing Bar Codes On A Dot Matrix Printer

Dot matrix printers offer the lowest resolution of all available printers. Although dot matrix printer manufacturers claim resolutions as high as 360 dots per inch, the real resolution of most is only 60 dots per inch. Higher resolutions are simulated by overlapping consecutive dots. The reason that the true resolution is only 60 dots per inch is because the width of each dot is approximately 1/60th of an inch (16 mils). In order to print readable bar codes on a dot matrix printer, the Narrow Bar Width must never be less than the width of a printer dot as it is impossible for a dot matrix printer to print a line narrower than the width of a single dot. The larger the value that you choose for the Narrow Bar Width (within the allowable range for a specific symbology), the more readable your bar codes will be.

When you set up the Windows printer driver for your dot matrix printer you should select the highest dot resolution that the printer is capable of. If the driver has a Dithering option, you should also select "Line Art" or the finest dithering resolution that is supported. Some dot matrix drivers also allow you to set the intensity or darkness of the printing. If your printer supports this feature, you should set the intensity to the darkest level supported.

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Pasting Bar Codes Into Corel Draw 4.0

For reasons known only to the designers of Corel Draw version 4.0, when you paste metafile graphics into a Corel document from the clipboard, Corel will automatically scale the metafile so that it fills the entire page with the metafile graphic image instead of retaining the original size of the image as specified in the metafile. Although Corel Draw provides sizing handles so that you can easily scale the image back down to a reasonable size, it may be difficult to scale the image exactly to the same size as originally specified in B-Coder.

Fortunately, Corel Draw provides another way import metafiles such that the original size of the metafile image is preserved. This method involves importing the metafile from a disk file. To use this method, first create a bar code in B-Coder and then save the bar code to a disk file in Windows metafile format (.WMF). Next, switch to Corel Draw and select "Import" from the Corel "File" menu. When the "Import" dialog appears, select "Windows MetaFile, *.WMF" as the file type and then enter or select the file name and directory path for the file that you saved your bar code to in B-Coder. Finally, click on the button marked "OK" to import the bar code graphic. Using this method, Corel Draw will import your bar code (or any other metafile graphic) correctly using the originally specified size parameters.

Another peculiar thing that Corel Draw does on occasion when importing metafiles is to substitute different fonts or font sizes for text that is embedded within a metafile. Although the result of this behavior may be perfectly acceptable, you can exercise a much greater degree of control over any text in a bar code symbol by entering the text directly in Corel Draw. For example you can turn off the human readable text in a bar code in B-Coder by disabling the "Include Text" option in B-Coder’s Preferences menu. After importing the bar code into a Corel document you can simply replace the text using the text tool in Corel Draw. Although this method is rather clumsy, it does offer more control of the final output.

If you are a heavy Corel Draw user and you find these problems to be unnecessarily inconvenient, you can call Corel Corp. directly at Tel:(613)-728-8200 or Fax:(613)-728-9790. Perhaps if they get enough complaints about the problems in their software, they will consider fixing them in the next release of their product.

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Pasting Bar Codes Into WordPerfect 6.0 and 6.1 For Windows

Several changes must be made in WordPerfect prior to using B-Coder with it. By default WordPerfect 6.0 converts metafiles to "WordPerfect Graphic" images (.WPG format). This conversion distorts your bar codes causing them to be unreadable. To correct this problem, select "Preferences" from WordPerfect’s "File" menu and then double click the icon labeled "Import" in the dialog box that appears. This will open the "Import Preferences" dialog that contains a set of "Metafile Options". Select "Retain Metafile (.WMF) Format" and click "OK".

In WordPerfect 6.1you must select "Preferences" from the "Edit" menu and then double click on the icon labeled "Convert" in the dialog box that appears. This will open up the "Convert Preferences" dialog box that contains a group of "Metafile Options". Select "Convert to WordPerfect (.WMF) Format" and then click "OK" .

The second problem is that when you paste a bar code (or any other metafile graphic) into WordPerfect from the clipboard, WordPerfect will automatically select and apply the graphic style "Figure" to the image. The default definition for the "Figure" style is set up in a way that causes metafiles pasted from the clipboard to be drawn not only out of scale, but inside a box with a border and right justified on the page! To set up WordPerfect to work with B-Coder the way it should, you will have to re-define the "Figure" style as outlined below.

To re-define the "Figure" graphics style in WordPerfect, first select "Graphics Styles..." from the "Graphics" menu and then hi-light the style "Figure" in the Styles list and click on the "Edit" button. When the "Edit Box Style" dialog box appears go through the following five steps:

1. Click on the button marked "Content" to display the "Image Content" dialog. In the "Box Content" dialog, choose "Image" from the "Content" list and clear the check box marked "Preserve Image Width/Height Ratio" and click on "OK" to return to the "Edit Box Style" dialog.
2. Click on the button marked "Position" to display the "Box Position" dialog. Select "Treat Box As Character" from the Box Placement options and then choose "Centered" from the "Position Box" options that appear. Check the check box marked "Box Changes Text Line Height" and click the "OK" button to return to the "Edit Box Style" dialog.
3. Click on the button marked "Size" to display the "Box Size" dialog. Select "Size to Contents" from the options for both the Height and the Width and click the "OK" button.
4. Click on the button marked "Border/Fill" to display the "Border/Fill Styles" dialog. Click on the button marked "Off" to disable borders and to return to the "Edit Box Style" dialog.
5. Click on the "Close" button in the "Edit Box Style" dialog to return to your document.

After you have gone through all of the steps above, WordPerfect will be set up to work as it should when pasting bar codes from B-Coder or metafiles pasted from other programs.

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