Creating bar codes on a web server using the TALtech Bar Code ActiveX control is accomplished by first installing the ActiveX control (Plus version) on the web server and then writing either CGI/Perl or Active Server Page code that calls the ActiveX control to generate and save the bar codes to a disk file on the server. The code that calls the ActiveX control would first create and save the bar code images (using the GIF or PNG file format) and then return a dynamically generated HTML document to the client's browser that contains an Image tag referencing the bar code image.

Note: ActiveX controls can only be installed on a Windows server. ActiveX controls are not supported by UNIX or Linux.

If you choose to use CGI/Perl scripts then you will also need to use a small helper program (Windows Executable program) written in either Visual Basic or another language that supports ActiveX controls. CGI/Perl scripts do not support ActiveX controls directly however they do have the ability to exeute other programs on a server and pass arguments to them via the command line. The purpose of the helper program is to input parameters from the CGI/Perl script, generate the bar codes by calling the ActiveX control and finally to return control to the CGI/Perl script passing back information about the size of the bar code that was generated so that the image can be scaled in the browser to the correct size.

Using Active Server Pages instead of CGI/Perl scripts greatly simplifies the entire process because ASP pages can call the TALtech Bar Code ActiveX control directly to produce the bar code image files on the server. Because of this, Active Server Pages require much less code than using CGI/Perl scripts and no helper program is needed. The only requirement for running Active Server Pages is that you have either Microsoft Internet Information Server or Microsoft Personal Web Server installed on the server.

Related Links

Creating Bar Codes on a Web Server Using Server Side Scripting - Technical Details