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13 Resolution and Barcodes
Printing barcodes requires paying special attention to the resolution of the printer,
especially if barcodes are small. Barcodes require a specific ratio of dark and light
sections to be read properly. Because the printer job has a particular resolution (for
example, 300 DPI) the barcode light and dark sections must fall along the columns of
dots for the resolution of printing selected. For example, if a module size of 3.333 mils is
chosen for a 1D barcode, either 300 or 600 DPI would be an optimal resolution. At 300
DPI, each line of pixels is printed every 3.333 mils and 600 DPI is half that.
The module size of a particular resolution can be found by dividing 1 by the
resolution. For example, at 300 DPI, the minimum module size that can be printed
accurately is 3.333 mils. Therefore, to print the barcode with high accuracy, the module
size must be a multiple of 3.333 at 300 DPI or some distortion of the barcode will occur.
If the barcode is large, this might not be noticeable. However, small barcodes may not
be scannable if the module size is not chosen correctly.
In the layout window, the available module sizes for barcodes are selected based
on the horizontal resolution. It is always best to select the module size directly for
printing. If the barcode is instead fit to its bounding box the module size will be selected
automatically at print time and some distortion of the barcode may occur.
In addition, some bleeding of ink may occur during printing, causing the barcode
ratio of dark to light areas to be distorted. Therefore, pixel shaving may be necessary to
adjust for this bleeding. Since the amount of ink bleed varies widely based on the ink
and substrate the best method for selecting the appropriate amount of pixel shaving is
experimentation.
For
information
Summary of Contents for Markem-Imaje 1050
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