Windows BarCode Generator Version 1.95 (C)opyright 1990-1991 All Rights Reserved Stellar Technologies 2510 Metro Blvd St. Louis, MO 63043 Wbar is user-supported software provided to you at no charge on a trial basis. If you use this software and find it of value please send $25 for a registered copy and support the shareware concept. Registered users will be provided with information about program updates. Please make checks payable to Stu Gisburne at the above address. You are encouraged to share this software with others provided that it is distributed complete with documentation and in unmodified form and that no fee or other consideration is charged or accepted. All commercial, business and government users must register each copy in use. I hope you enjoy using Wbar. Your comments and suggestions to improve this product are always welcome. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION PROGRAM DESCRIPTION PROGRAM DESCRIPTION Wbar is a program which generates bar codes (ie: 3 of 9, UPC, Postnet, etc) that can be copied to the Windows Clipboard. Once in the Clipboard, you can then paste the barcode into other programs such as Windows Write, MicroSoft Word for Windows, Paintbrush, as well as other Windows programs that can accept bitmaps or metafiles from the Windows Clipboard. HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS IBM Personal Computer or Compatible MicroSoft Windows 3.0 Mouse PROGRAM FILES PROGRAM FILES PROGRAM FILES The Wbar system comes in four files: WBAR.EXE executable program module WBAR.DOC this document in Word for Windows format WBAR.PRN this document in ASCII format WBARHELP.HLP WBAR help system Page 2 GENERAL PROGRAM OVERVIEW GENERAL PROGRAM OVERVIEW GENERAL PROGRAM OVERVIEW Upon execution, Wbar produces a typical Windows program window. The menu consists of File, Edit, Action, Type, Special and Help. When first loaded, the About Wbar Dialog Box appears if you have an unregistered copy of Wbar, otherwise you are presented by blank window. The cursor takes on the shape of a barcode while in the workspace of the Wbar window. To make a barcode, you simply position the cursor in the window where you want to place the barcode and click the left button on your mouse. A dialog box will appear allowing you to toggle various options, select what type of barcode to produce and to input the barcode data. After all this is done, clicking on OK will produce the desired barcode on the display. If you have the AutoMeta mode ON then a metafile of the barcode is copied to the clipboard. If you wish to copy a bitmap representation of the barcode to the clipboard, you then choose ACTION from the main menu. Clicking on SELECT from the ACTION submenu will toggle the cursor to become a cross. You then press the left mouse button and drag a box around the barcode. After releasing the left mouse button, clicking on COPY from the EDIT menu copies the selected box area to be pasted in Bitmap form to the Windows Clipboard. Page 3 MENU FUNCTIONS MENU FUNCTIONS MENU FUNCTIONS FILE FILE FILE NEW basically clears the Wbar window of any barcodes EXIT exits the Wbar program and closes the window EDIT EDIT EDIT COPY copies a selected area to the Clipboard PASTE pastes from the Clipboard to the upper left area of the Wbar window CLEAR another way to clear the Wbar window ACTION ACTION ACTION BARCODE toggles the cursor to barcode mode SELECT toggles the cursor to the area select mode TYPE TYPE TYPE COLOR when checked, any copies to the clipboard will be in color bitmap format MONOCHROME when checked, any copies to the clipboard will be in monochrome bitmap format. AUTOMETA when checked, any barcodes produced on the display will be automatically copied to the clipboard in the Windows MetaFile format. Very useful to produce barcodes of exact size. Also the best way to paste barcodes into Corel Draw 2.0 and procduce POSTNET barcodes suitable for printing on envelopes. Note: Metafiles pasted into other applications may not look correct on the display, but should print correctly. SPECIAL SPECIAL SPECIAL Default Barcodes When producing a barcode with this option checked, the default barcode dialog box will be used to input various options. With this dialog box you can choose amoung the following barcodes. Page 4 UPC-A UPC-E // currently not supported 3 of 9 Interleaved 2 of 5 PostNet EAN 13 EAN 8 Codabar Code 128 Bookland When producing a barcode with this option checked, the Bookland EAN barcode dialog box will be used to input various options such as ISBN number and book price. Bookland EAN barcodes are typically found on or in most books sold today. FIM Facing Identification Mark patterns are typically used on reply mail envelopes and cards to further help the Postal Service in sorting mail. Currently there are four different patterns made up of a 9- position bar/no-bar pattern. There are position requirements for FIM patterns. Obtain Postal publication #25 for details. FIM A - Courtesy Reply Mail with POSTNET FIM B - Business Reply, Penalty or Franked Mail without POSTNET FIM C - Business Reply, Penalty or Franked Mail with POSTNET FIM D - OCR Readable Mail without POSTNET (usually used on courtesy reply window envelopes) HELP invokes the WBAR help online help system ABOUT displays a dialog box containing information about the Wbar Program Page 5 Barcode Types currently supported in Wbar: Barcode Types currently supported in Wbar: Barcode Types currently supported in Wbar: UPC-A UPC-A UPC-A Universal Product Code. Commonly used in the supermarket industry since 1973. UPC is a coding system as well as a symbology, used to identify a product and its manufacturer. UPC-A is a fixed length numeric barcode which encodes 12 digits. 0 04560 17100 8 The first digit is the industry code. For example 0 is grocery and 3 is pharmaceutical. Digits 2 thru 6 specify the manufacturers product number. Digits 7 thru 11 contain the manufacturer ID number. The remaining 12th digit is a check digit calculated from the preceding digits. Interleaved 2 of 5 Interleaved 2 of 5 Interleaved 2 of 5 A variable length, high density code containing the digits 0 thru 9. Because of the nature of coding Interleaved 2 of 5, data contained in the barcode must be an even amount of digits. 3 of 9 3 of 9 3 of 9 An alphanumeric code consisting of the upper case letters "A" thru "Z", the digits "0" thru "9", and the characters "-", "+", ".", "$", "/", "%" and the space character. It is of a variable length and can contain up to 100 charcters in this version of Wbar. POSTNET POSTNET POSTNET The POSTNET bar code was developed by the Postal Service to provide a system of encoding Zip Code information on letter mail, which can be read reliably by relatively inexpensive bar code sorters. The code is made up of binary elements printed in the lower right corner of the mail peice as tall and short bars representing the Zip Code or Zip+4 code. The location of the complete Zip+4 is very presice. The baseline of the code should be 1/4" (+/- 1/16") from the bottom edge of the mail piece. The start (left-most) bar should lie between 3 1/4" and 4" from the right edge of the mail piece. Page 6 CODABAR CODABAR CODABAR Codabar is commonly used in libraries, blood banks and air parcel express applications. It comprises 16 characters, the numbers "0" through "9" and the characters "$", ":", "/", ".", "+", and "-". There are four different start/stop codes "A", "B", "C", "D". In this version of Wbar only the start/stop sequence "AsomedataB" will be recognised and displayed correctly. Example: "A$12345B" EAN 13 EAN 13 EAN 13 European Article Numbering barcode 13 digit. Simular to the UPC-A barcode in height, width and number of bars. It does however allow a 13th digit to be encoded into the barcode. The entire code comprises 12 user digits plus an EAN checkdigit. Keep in mind that EAN scanners can read EAN and UPC barcodes, but a UPC scanner might not be able to read an EAN barcode. EAN 8 EAN 8 EAN 8 European Article Numbering barcode 8 digit. Same characteristics as the UPC-A barcode, but is smaller and allows only 7 user digits and an EAN check digit. Code 128 Code 128 Code 128 Code 128 was introduced in 1981 as a very high density alphanumeric symbology. It is a variable length, continuous code employing multiple element widths. Code 128 has 3 different character sets. In this version of WBAR, only character set B is used. Character set B contains the full ASCII set of printable characters. FIM (Facing Identification Mark) FIM (Facing Identification Mark) FIM (Facing Identification Mark) See explanation under Special/FIM above. Page 7 ST E L LA R T E C H N O L O G I E S M A K E S N O W A R R A N T I E S , E X P R E S S O R I M P L I E D , A N D S P E C I F I C A LL Y D I S C L A I M S A N Y I M P L I E D W A R R A N T I E S O F M E R C H A N T A B I L I T Y O R F I T N E S S F O R A N Y P A R T I C U L A R P U R P O S E . S T E L L A R T E C H N O L O G I E S F U R T H E R R E S E R V E S T H E R I G H T T O M A K E C H A N G E S T O T H E S P E C I F I C A T I O N S O F T H E P R O D U C T W I T H O U T O B L I G A T I O N T O N O T I F Y A N Y P E R S O N O R O R G A N I Z A T I O N O F S U C H C H A N G E S . L I M I T A T I O N O F L I A B I L I T Y : T he C u s t o m e r ' s s o l e r e m e di e s a r e s e t f o r th i n t h e w a r r a n ty c la u s e a b o v e . S t e ll ar T e c h no l o g ie s li a b il i t y fo r d a ma g e s sh a l l n o t e x c e e d t h e c u r r e n t r e g i s t r a t i o n fe e fo r th e Pr o du c t . I n n o e v e n t wi ll S te ll a r T ec h n o l og i e s be l i a b l e f o r an y s p e c i a l , i n c i d e n t a l o r c o ns eq ue nt ia l d am a g e s e ve n i f S t el la r T e c h no l og ie s has been advised of the possibility of the same. Comments and inquiries may be sent to me through Compuserve ID number 74516,2776 or to: Stellar Technologies c/o Stu Gisburne 2510 Metro Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63043 Page 8 Revision History ===================== Version 1.0 - 07-14-90 - Pastes UPC-A bar code to the clipboard Version 1.1 - 08-05-90 - Added 3 of 9 barcode Version 1.2 - 08-22-90 - Added Postnet barcode Version 1.3 - 09-13-90 - Added monochrome bitmap capabilites to allow pastes into Corel Draw 1.21 Version 1.4 - 11-30-90 - Added Interleaved 2 of 5 barcode Version 1.5 - 01-21-91 - Included documentation with file Version 1.6 - 02-17-91 - Fixed Postnet, incorrectly calculated check digit when the sum of digits in the zipcode was zero. - Added Windows Metafile capabilites. This enables Wbar to produce exact size barcodes and sets up Wbar for future Dynamic Data Exchange with other programs. Version 1.7 - 02-24-91 - Added Codabar, EAN13, EAN8, Codabar Version 1.8 - 03-15-91 - Added Bookland EAN which is a variation of EAN13. Also better positioning of readable data in barcode. Version 1.9 - 04-13-91 - Added Postal FIM patterns Version 1.95 06-08-91 - Added WBAR Help system - Added Code 128