[TriLUG] barcode printers on Linux

[Ryan Leathers]

I have used those Intermec printers in health care as well.  They are
little tanks, but they had a propensity for TCP timeout errors across
slow wan links.

On Thu, 2004-07-01 at 12:25, Alan Porter wrote:
> > 1.  printer that prints barcodes onto stickers.
> 
> I used to work for a company that sold barcode inventory management
> systems (to poultry processing plants ... insert jokes here).  We used
> special barcode printers from Intermec and Symbol that treated barcodes
> as if they were just some special font.  The application did not need to
> know that it was printing a barcode.  It was just intermixed with the rest
> of the text on the barcode.
> 
> The serial data that I sent to the printer looked like this:
> L
> W
> D11
> 1e2205300120065C&G[BARCODE]
> 102200000030055[HUMANREADABLE]
> 162200001840060[LABELWEIGHT]         X
> 402200002050050[PACKDATE-M]
> 102200000700065THIS BOX WAS CAREFULLY PACKED AND INSPECTED BY [USER]
> 1X2200001650020L401001
> 122300001300025[DESCRIPTION1OF2]
> 122300000950025[DESCRIPTION2OF2]
> 1X2200000850020L401001
> 112300002250245NET
> 122300001850245[UNITS]
> 1X2100001800055B225075001001
> 112300002150300BEST BEFORE
> 12230000185030[OFFSET1]
> 154200002850065[PRODUCT]
> 1X2100002750055L225070
> 161100003750025[USERDEF01]
> 122100003600025[USERDEF02]
> 1Y1100002500300USDA
> E
> 
> I would replace the [BARCODE] tag with the actual text that is encoded in the
> barcode.  And I would replace the [HUMANREADABLE] tag with the same thing,
> sometimes with some nice dashes inserted to make it easy to read.  If I recall
> right, the 2nd column was the "font".  Font "e" is a UCC-128 barcode font.  
> There were of course others, like the familiar UPC, etc.
> 
> These printers were made to print and print and print and print... on sticker
> labels, and FAST.  It might not be what you're looking for, but it sure saved
> us a lot of effort in trying to print readable barcodes on various printers.
> There are some tricks you have to do to make sure that the printer's DPI
> does not skew the bar code pattern.
> 
> 
> Alan Porter
porter at trilug.org
-- 
Ryan Leathers <ryan.leathers at globalknowledge.com>
Global Knowledge