Sizing of Barcodes (Using New XMPBarcode function)

[Tom Schicker]

With the release of uProduce 6.2, there is a new way of generating barcodes as graphic ador objects instead of using fonts.  XMPie has recommended that users begin migrating their projects over to this new method as the support for font generated barcodes will cease at some point in the future.

We have been playing around with generating graphic based barcodes using this new QLingo Function Call (XMPBarcode(barcodeName, inputText /*, advancedParametersString */)) and I have a few questions that I am hoping someone might be able to answer.

1.  How does one control the size (specifically the height) of the barcode graphic ador?  I can fit the barcode graphic content to the frame but the human readable portion is not very human readable!).

2.  Is there any way to control the size of the human readable portion of the barcode on those that support human readable?

3.  Is there a rendering performance hit for generating this images "on the fly"?  If so, is there a way to minimize the impact to rendering?

4.  Is there a way to get a watermark to show behind a graphic ador based barcode?  We have one mail piece that requires a watermark to show ever so slightly behind the barcodes and this was easily accomplished with font based barcodes.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

Tom

[rhop...@comcast.net]

I would also be interested in this, I have a tech support in on the Int2Of5 not working with my data. I was also having trouble with Module Width on this bar code to specify size but "fit proportional" is at least a backup.

I need Code 39 to half as tall as it is given and the human readable twice as big to match the font version of the bar code. Technically we just use a secondary ADOR to create the human readable part of the bar code which I could revert to but would really like to not have all the extra ADORS.

thanks,
Bob

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From: "Tom Schicker" <twsch...@cox.net>
To: xmpie...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, July 29, 2013 12:15:04 PM
Subject: [xmpie-users] Sizing of Barcodes (Using New XMPBarcode function)

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[Bob Hopfner]

Howdy Tom,

I went through some of this last week and can offer you a few answers:

1.  How does one control the size (specifically the height) of the barcode graphic ador?  I can fit the barcode graphic content to the frame but the human readable portion is not very human readable!).

At this time there is no control over this.
 

2.  Is there any way to control the size of the human readable portion of the barcode on those that support human readable?

At this time there is no control over this.
 

3.  Is there a rendering performance hit for generating this images "on the fly"?  If so, is there a way to minimize the impact to rendering?

Since these bar codes seem to be postscript in nature, I would say it is pretty minimum, based on my experience rendering QR and Datamatrix codes. I don't have any real data to back that up.
 

4.  Is there a way to get a watermark to show behind a graphic ador based barcode?  We have one mail piece that requires a watermark to show ever so slightly behind the barcodes and this was easily accomplished with font based barcodes.

There isn't a way to specify a transparent background in the barcodes but if you put a the "multiply" transparency effect on the image box you will render the white parts of the image transparent. If your watermark is also black you will have no trouble but other colors will darken and anything white will also disappear.

For my own benefit I put the size and font control parameters in to XMPie as a feature request. I could add "transparent background" as an option if you want.

cheers,
Bob
 

[Bob Hopfner]

Another update to this,

I can't say without 100% confidence, however, the only difference between 2 files is one has text bar codes and the other has all the text bar codes replaced with the vector generated "new" bar codes.

The first file processed 150 records in 2 minutes. the latter? 26 minutes for the same number of records. Same images, same data set. . .

not sure what else it could be.

stay tuned . . .

[Thomas Schicker]

Thanks for the updates Bob.  Much appreciated 

Tom

Sent from my iPhone

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[Igor]

XMPie has a very flexible infrastructure and those who would like to use different type of barcodes , like font based can do some development or use XMPie professional services or any other integrator for such development. 

it is possible to use XMPie QLingo Extension mechanism and third party libraries for that project. Usually with the font based barcodes QLingo Extension will do data encoding and custom font will be supplied by the vendor.

In addition XMPie has PGE mechanism that allow you to write more complex barcodes. Such barcodes can not only initiate value from ADOR objects but also can change value based on Total number of pages, current page . Usually systems that use some type of tracking software or smart feeders can choose different envelops based on number of pages that can vary with dynamic content.

Igor.

[Thomas Schicker]

That's great information Igor.  Thanks

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 13, 2013, at 8:54 AM, Igor <vori...@gmail.com> wrote:

XMPie has a very flexible infrastructure and those who would like to use different type of barcodes , like font based can do some development or use XMPie professional services or any other integrator for such development. 

it is possible to use XMPie QLingo Extension mechanism and third party libraries for that project. Usually with the font based barcodes QLingo Extension will do data encoding and custom font will be supplied by the vendor.

In addition XMPie has PGE mechanism that allow you to write more complex barcodes. Such barcodes can not only initiate value from ADOR objects but also can change value based on Total number of pages, current page . Usually systems that use some type of tracking software or smart feeders can choose different envelops based on number of pages that can vary with dynamic content.

Igor.

 

On Monday, August 12, 2013 4:42:50 PM UTC-4, Tom Schicker wrote:

[Bob Hopfner]

Howdy Igor!

I have worked with Igor on just such a project at my last job. He is the best! We needed a GS1 barcode for a coupon project and Igor and his team came through for us. I think now though, XMPie already has a good number of GS1 codes.

[Bob Hopfner]

I had some spare time today and created a couple of bar code tests. One is based on fonts and XMPCode39() and the other is the vector XMPBarcode("Code39",|->data)

I created a data set with 52 bar codes across 999 records. Each document is 1 page in InDesign with the codes distributed across the page. No other text or graphics are on the page.
I wanted some measurable time figures so I figured I needed a good number of records to reflect this. I was partially right.

The text based test completed creating a 999 page pdf in 3 minutes and 15 seconds and reflected the need for a good data set to reflect a solid time score.

The vector based test is still running. It started at 2:51 on Aug 13 and after almost 2hrs has reflected that it has completed 100 records and is working on the next 100.

I ran a second test with only 10 records and the server completed the test in 22 minutes flat. At that rate the 999 records will take: 36.63 hours. a full day and a half.

I will probably send these files into tech support to make sure I am not doing anything wrong. Why do these vector based bar codes take so long to render?

thanks,
Bob

[Igor]

Thanks ,

Just a curiosity would you be able to compare GS1 barcode that we delivered to you with new XMPie GS1 barcode.

As you remember in the past I told you that on my opinion font barcodes have a very small blue print over the image based ones.

Igor.

[Bob Hopfner]

Sorry Igor, I wish I could. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw how the new bar codes work. Unfortunately I don't work at that company any more. I might be able to get you in touch with someone there that can help you but I don't know if they have upgraded beyond 5.3.1.

[Bob Hopfner]

Next update!

My test file completed rendering in 15hrs and 33 minutes. Well ahead of the estimated 36+hrs. Still it would seem that there is a significant performance lag with the rendered bar codes. I am not sure how "real world" my test is or how it would compare to a test of 55000 records with only one IMB bar code. I am sure other factors come in to play and font based bar codes obviously have a smaller resource footprint / greater performance.

cheers,
Bob

[Igor]

if they under maintenance from pro services they can get updated custom solution as well. 

[Igor]

FIrst Case on XMPie support has to be opened.

Campaign has to be uploaded since it is definitely disturbing info.

you mentioned that you have 55 barcodes , why ? are you using different barcode per each pages ..?

or it is just 55 variations of data , can you please clarify 

[Bob Hopfner]

Already did that and Support is on the case. I uploaded all of my test files as well.

This is a test file, not a campaign. I knew a file with one bar code would render very fast with fonts so I had to slow it down with lots of data. On the flip side it, that many vector bar codes are very taxing to the system.

I do have a 6-page campaign with about 25 barcodes on various dynamic layers that rendered in minutes with font based bar codes but took 26+ minutes to render when I replaced all the barcodes with image-based codes.

[Igor]

please give me case number so I will follow up