BarDIMM Pro & BarDIMM Box – Intelligent
Barcode Printing System
©2004-2006 Jetmobile
Page 16
6- How BarDIMM works
1.
A typeface in the BarDIMM range (24580-24900) is activated with a classical
combined PCL font call sequence: <Esc>(s#p#h#v#b#s#T where # are parameters.
2.
The end of bar code data is determined according to the bar code type:
* Bar code data is numeric only: ended by space/CR/LF/FF/Escape code.
* Bar code data is alphanumeric: ended by CR/LF/FF/Escape code.
Advice
: end the data to barcode with a valid PCL5 regular font sequence, such as
<Esc>(10U<Esc>(s0p12hbs4099T
3.
Data is analyzed to verify it fits in the bar code specs:
* Correct data size (25 must have an even size, EAN 8/13 and UPC have fixed
lengths etc...).
* Valid data: some systems, like UPC-E, accept only specially structured data.
* Data only Numeric or Alphanumeric, allowed characters.
If data is invalid (incorrect size or invalid characters), a X is printed on bars and an error
message describing the problem is systematically added below the bars, preventing the
user from blindly printing invalid bar codes.
4.
Some formats require what is called a checksum. A checksum is a value, result of a
complex calculation on the code data. That value is added to the end of the data and
used by the code reader to proof the reading. BarDIMM calculates automatically the
checksum(s) of bar codes that need it. Bar codes can have up to two checksums (MSI
Plessey, UCC128). If the checksum was provided with fixed length data (EAN 8/13,
UPC) it is ignored.
5.
BarDIMM generates the bar code, according to parameters in the font-like PCL
sequence. For BarDIMM bar codes, PCL font parameters are don't have the standard
Transparent Print Data Mode
Some bar code formats support full 128 character set, from ASCII code 0 to ASCII code
127, or full binary data (ASCII 0 to 255): Bar codes Extended 39, Extended 93, 128A,
PDF417, 128auto, MaxiCode, EAN/UCC128, Data Matrix, Aztec, Codablock, QRcode.
If you want to print special characters (ASCII code < 32) with those bar codes, a
"Transparent Print Data" PCL sequence (<Esc>&p#X, where <Esc> is replaced by ASCII
char 27 decimal or by ‘~’ and where # is replaced with the number of data bytes that
follow until the next escape sequence) must follow immediately the font selection
sequence. This is the only way to know how many characters have to be printed as bar
codes. Please analyze the sample Code/EAN/UCC 128 test files for more information.
