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.

Inserting Bar Codes Into an Excel 97/2000 Worksheet