How to create Coupon Code bar codes using the TAL Bar Code ActiveX control
The information in this article applies to:
- TAL Bar Code ActiveX Control
- TAL Bar Code ActiveX PLUS
- TAL Bar Code ActiveX Demo
Background:
Coupon Code bar codes are made up of two individual bar codes placed
next to each other. The first bar code is either a standard UPC-A or EAN-13
bar code and the second bar code (the extended coupon code) is a UCC/EAN
128 bar code that is completely independent of the first bar code. All
three types of bar code can be produced by our bar code ActiveX control.
Solution:
The trick to producing coupon codes with our activex control is simply
to use two instances of the control and feed the two independent (UPC/EAN
and UCC/EAN 128) bar code messages to their respective instance of the
ActiveX control. The only requirement is that you print the extended code
symbol a minimum of 10 times the NarrowBarWidth distance (typically 130
mils) to the right of the UPC or EAN symbol to maintain the quiet zone between the two bar codes.
Occasionally there is a need to save coupon code bar codes to a disk
file in a single graphic file. Unfortunately the TAL Bar Code ActiveX
control does not have the ability to do this directly however it is possible
to use Windows API functions to combine two bar code images together into
a single graphic file.
The file CouponCode.ZIP (below) contains a sample Visual Basic 6 program
that demonstrates how to combine two bar code images created with the
TAL Bar Code ActiveX control together into a single Windows Metafile graphic
file.
 Download
CouponCode.ZIP
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