Trouble Printing Barcodes That Are Readable

Legacy Poster

• 29. Mai 2015 15:20

I'm new to Bartender, but I'm resurrecting an old file to add a new field to it - see attached for the original file.  I'm able to add the new field with a preamble (which I learned about recently), but when the label prints out, the barcodes look different than when I print one with the original .prn file.  And I can't read the barcodes on the new one but I can read the barcodes when printing with the original .prn file.

 

I've been testing with a Zebra 170Xi.  If I change the printer to a Zebra 170XiIII Plus (which is a production printer not in my building) to generate the .prn file and still print on the 170Xi, it's the same.

 

It seems that the problem is that I can't change the density of the barcode to match the value on the original format (15.000 chars/in).  No matter what printer I use to create the .prn file, it doesn't give me a choice for 15.000.  I've also tried every Zebra font (and they're different choices depending on what printer I use).  For the 170XiIII Plus, the highest value is 12.500.  For the 170Xi, the highest value is 19.000, and the next lowest is 10.482, and neither one of those is readable when I print the label.

 

Help please!

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• 

  Ian Cummings

  Moderator

  ★ BarTender Hero ★

  • 17. Juni 2015 11:48

  What printer model and resolution was the document originally created for?

   

  Do you need to be using full ASCII Code 39, or would regular Code 39 suffice?

   

  Here follows a note about barcode X dimensions.

   

  The X-dimension setting of a barcode specifies the width of the barcode. This in fact adjusts the number of dots a printer uses for the width of the narrowest element of the barcode. All other bars of greater width grow in ratio to the narrowest bar as you expand the barcode's width.

   

  The size of the dot and the X-dimension are determined by the selected printer's resolution. A dot represents the size of the smallest mark the printer can print. Each step in the X-dimension increases the narrowest element by a single dot of the printer. The printer resolution is important because it's impossible to increase the narrowest elements by fractions of a dot. It can only increase by a full extra dot. Of course all wider barcode elements grow in ratio to this.

   

  For example if the narrow element is 1 dot wide and the widest element is 10, when we increase the X-dimension by 1, so that the narrow element is 2, the widest element will now be 20. This accounts for the "jumping" in the barcode's width when you increase the X-dimension. The higher the resolution of the printer, the smaller these increments will be, because the size of a single dot will be smaller.

   

  We do not advise that you try working around this physical limitation of the printer by exporting the barcode object as a graphic and then importing it back into your design as a picture object. Although a picture object can be scaled to any dimension desired, it will result in a poor quality barcode and may be unreadable for a barcode scanner.

   

  BarTender allows you to specify a target x-dimension of your barcode, which will tell BarTender to always render your barcode as close to the target x-dimension as possible. This feature can be found in the properties of the barcode on the Symbology and Size page. Click on the Wizard button to the right of X Dimension.

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