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How to generate Barcodes with asp.net

Greetings mates,

Does anyone know how to generate barcodes?

We are trying to come up with a BarCode for one of our apps.

Management would like a barcode to have customer names (First Name, Last Name) so it can be scanned using one of pitney bowes scanning systems.

I don't mind a link but the link should have *working* examples. I have already scowed the web and each example I tried doesn't work.

Thanks a lot in advance.

SOLUTION

koossa

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wasiftoor

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sammySeltzer

ASKER

Thanks for the response guys.

koossa, your link looks great but we would like a freeware. That's not free.

wasiftoor, have you tried that code?

SOLUTION

Chris Ashcraft

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sammySeltzer

ASKER

I saw that. I actually tried to use that.

Now, it works when I hardcode the value that is supposed to be passed from barcode.aspx?code=...

I have 2 questions then.

1, is that supposed to work with the following code?

<%@ Page language="c#" Codebehind="WebForm1.aspx.cs" 
   AutoEventWireup="false" Inherits="BarCodes.WebForm1" %>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" >
<HTML>
 <HEAD>
  <title>WebForm1</title>
  <meta name="GENERATOR" Content="Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 7.1">
  <meta name="CODE_LANGUAGE" Content="C#">
  <meta name="vs_defaultClientScript" content="JavaScript">
  <meta name="vs_targetSchema" 
        content="http://schemas.microsoft.com/intellisense/ie5">
 </HEAD>
 <body MS_POSITIONING="GridLayout">
  <form id="Form1" method="post" runat="server">
   <asp:Image id="myBarCode"  runat="server"></asp:Image>
  </form>
 </body>
</HTML>

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which is at the bottom of that tutorial page?

Second, I would like the value generated from the db.

My biggest issue with the code is we are running windows application.

SOLUTION

Nasir Razzaq

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sammySeltzer

ASKER

I actually tried that and it worked. What I have been trying to figure out is:

A, how I do modify the code a bit to generate all the barcodes for each customer.

I know it will be a huge number of records but it is good to do this.

I tried this:

While dreader.Read()
FullName = dreader.GetString(0)
FullName = StrConv(FullName, vbProperCase)
End While
dreader.Close()

'************BarCode Starts***********************
' Get the Requested code to be created.
Dim Code As String = FullName

but kept getting just one record.

B, Perhaps, use search so I can grab one record at a time.

What do you think?

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VijayBalkawade

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sammySeltzer

ASKER

Ok, I am able to get it to work this way:

Markup:

 <body ms_positioning="GridLayout">
  <form id="Form1" method="post" runat="server">
    <input type="hidden" name="code" value="hqcfqs55kioevn55saz0me55" />  
    <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Generate barcode"></asp:Button> 
</form>

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CodeBehind:

    Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load

        If Page.IsPostBack Then
            Dim code As String = Request.Form("code")
            If Not String.IsNullOrEmpty(code) Then
                ' Generate your image here, a code has been specified 
            End If

            ' Get the Requested code to be created.

            ' Multiply the lenght of the code by 40 (just to have enough width)
            Dim w As Integer = code.Length * 40

            ' Create a bitmap object of the width that we calculated and height of 100
            Dim oBitmap As New Bitmap(w, 100)

            ' then create a Graphic object for the bitmap we just created.
            Dim oGraphics As Graphics = Graphics.FromImage(oBitmap)

            ' Now create a Font object for the Barcode Font
            ' (in this case the IDAutomationHC39M) of 18 point size
            Dim oFont As New Font("IDAutomationHC39M", 18)

            ' Let's create the Point and Brushes for the barcode
            Dim oPoint As New PointF(2.0F, 2.0F)
            Dim oBrushWrite As New SolidBrush(Color.Black)
            Dim oBrush As New SolidBrush(Color.White)

            ' Now lets create the actual barcode image
            ' with a rectangle filled with white color
            oGraphics.FillRectangle(oBrush, 0, 0, w, 100)

            ' We have to put prefix and sufix of an asterisk (*),
            ' in order to be a valid barcode
            oGraphics.DrawString("*" + code + "*", oFont, oBrushWrite, oPoint)

            ' Then we send the Graphics with the actual barcode
            Response.ContentType = "image/jpeg"
            oBitmap.Save(Response.OutputStream, ImageFormat.Jpeg)

        End If
    End Sub

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However, We want the code or in our case, name, to be generated from the db.

How do I modify this code to make it happen?

Thanks,

Nasir Razzaq

Change

While dreader.Read()
FullName = dreader.GetString(0)
FullName = StrConv(FullName, vbProperCase)
End While
dreader.Close()

'************BarCode Starts***********************
' Get the Requested code to be created.
Dim Code As String = FullName

to

While dreader.Read()
FullName = dreader.GetString(0)
FullName = StrConv(FullName, vbProperCase)
'************BarCode Starts***********************
' Get the Requested code to be created.
Dim Code As String = FullName
'Rest of code to generate barcode.
End While
dreader.Close()

sammySeltzer

ASKER

Sorry, I should have mentioned that I tried that earlier but it was still drawing just one barcode (for one customer), the very first one it sees.

I must be doing something wrong.

Nasir Razzaq

Yes. You are probably using a sql statement which only loads one customer or something else similar. Can you show full code?

sammySeltzer

ASKER

    Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load


            Dim connStr As String = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings("dbCust").ConnectionString
            Dim conn As New SqlConnection(connStr)
            Dim myDS As New DataSet
            Dim FullName As String

            Dim sqlStr As String = ""

            sqlStr = "SELECT top 10 fname +' '+ lname AS FullName FROM tblCustomer ORDER BY lname"
            Dim cmd As New SqlCommand(sqlStr, conn)
            Dim myAd As New SqlDataAdapter(cmd)
            'Response.Write(sqlStr)
            'Response.End()
            conn = New SqlConnection(connStr)
            conn.Open()
            cmd = New SqlCommand(sqlStr, conn)

            Dim dreader = cmd.ExecuteReader()


            While dreader.Read()
                FullName = dreader.GetString(0)
                FullName = StrConv(FullName, vbProperCase)


                 ' Get the Requested code to be created.
                Dim Code As String = FullName

                ' Multiply the lenght of the code by 40 (just to have enough width)
                Dim w As Integer = Code.Length * 40

                ' Create a bitmap object of the width that we calculated and height of 100
                Dim oBitmap As New Bitmap(w, 100)

                ' then create a Graphic object for the bitmap we just created.
                Dim oGraphics As Graphics = Graphics.FromImage(oBitmap)

                ' Now create a Font object for the Barcode Font
                ' (in this case the IDAutomationHC39M) of 18 point size
                Dim oFont As New Font("IDAutomationHC39M", 18)

                ' Let's create the Point and Brushes for the barcode
                Dim oPoint As New PointF(2.0F, 2.0F)
                Dim oBrushWrite As New SolidBrush(Color.Black)
                Dim oBrush As New SolidBrush(Color.White)

                ' Now lets create the actual barcode image
                ' with a rectangle filled with white color
                oGraphics.FillRectangle(oBrush, 0, 0, w, 100)

                ' We have to put prefix and sufix of an asterisk (*),
                ' in order to be a valid barcode
                oGraphics.DrawString("*" + Code + "*", oFont, oBrushWrite, oPoint)

                ' Then we send the Graphics with the actual barcode
                Response.ContentType = "image/jpeg"
                oBitmap.Save(Response.OutputStream, ImageFormat.Jpeg)

            End While
            dreader.Close()
    End Sub
End Class

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SOLUTION

Nasir Razzaq

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sammySeltzer

ASKER

Thanks all. We decided to abandon this project. I don't know why but thanks for all the help.

Maybe, we can restart later.