B-Coder Installation Issues

Error: "Setup cannot copy the file Setup1.ex_ ..."

This error usually indicates that a file named "Setup1.exe" already exists on your computer, probably from a previous installation of software. To resolve the problem, click on your Start button, choose Find > Files or Folders and search your hard drive(s) for "Setup1.exe" (without the quotations), and rename or delete it. Then re-run B-Coder Setup.

Macro Questions

Word 2000/2002(XP) Macro problems

By default, Word 2000 sets its macro virus security level to high. This means that all macros are disabled. To enable the macros go to the Tools Menu, click on Macro and choose "Security" then set the security level to Medium and restart Word. If the macros do not work, download the latest Word Macros. Also be aware that the macros will not function with B-Coder Lite.

Note: Word 2002 may also require you list the open document as being from a "Trusted Source".

MakeBarCodeLabels Problem

If you use a custom label size that is less than 1" wide this macro may run forever and never insert a barcode: Since Word generates a table that represents the label sheet sometimes it must create "Padder" cells between the labels. If our macro did not check the width of each table cell before inserting a barcode it would try to stuff barcodes into these extra cells. If you were printing a sequence of barcodes, when you printed them you would find gaps in the sequence, and tiny barcodes between your labels. Since No Avery Label is less than 1" wide, the code was written to look for cells that are more than 1" wide before pasting the barcode. If a cell is less than 1" wide, it is assumed to be a padding cell so it moves on to the next cell. Thus if you have no cells greater than 1" it will become stuck in a loop trying to find a one".

To fix the problem you must edit the macro:

1. Go to Tools|Macro|Macros
2. Click on MakeBarCodeLabels.Main
3. Click on Edit
4. In the VB Editor go to the Edit Menu and click on "Find"
5. In the "Find What" box type "padder" and click on "Find Next"
6. 2 lines below the one that you'll find is the line:

Do while PointsToInches(selection.cells.width) < 1

Modify this line to end with "< 0.8" (use your custom label width!)

7. Click on Save, then close the VB Editor and try running your macro again.

This applies to both the B-Coder and ActiveX versions of this macro.

Barcode MailMerge

The steps below outline how to use Word's mail merge feature with B-Coder's barcoding tools.

1. With a new blank document open in Word, go to the TOOLS menu and choose MAIL MERGE.
2. Under CREATE choose either "mailing labels" or "form letter"
3. Under GET DATA choose your data source. If your data source is an Excel file, don't forget to change the selection in the "Files of type" box to Excel files or you may be unable to see your file!
4. Set up your main document by inserting the mail merge fields. (and choosing label type if applicable.)
5. Format the field(s) you wish to convert to barcodes using the style of the barcode you wish to create: For example, if you have a field called "barcode" in your word document it will look like "<<barcode>>", highlight it and then go to the FORMAT menu and choose STYLES. From the list of styles choose a barcode style for example Code128 and click on APPLY, then OK.
6. Return to the Mail Merge Helper and click on MERGE, then MERGE TO NEW DOCUMENT.
7. Go to the TOOLS Menu and select MERGEBARCODES. This will convert all text formatted with the style Code128 to Code 128 barcodes.
   

General Questions

Will B-Coder Work with Windows 2000/XP?

Yes. The current releases of B-Coder 4.0 will work with any 32 bit Windows operating system.

I upgraded from B-Coder 2.x to 3.x (or later) and now I can't open the old .bcf configuration files, what can I do?

Download our free converter program (28 KB). You can either run the program and select the files you want to convert or feed the filename to the program on the command line as in the following command:

bc2-3cnv.exe MyOldConfig.bcf