BarCode Generator with CF Report Builder

rai...@ozemail.com.au

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Mar 20, 2012, 11:34:28 AM3/20/12

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Hi,

I am building customer invoice templates using ColdFusion Report Builder and I am needing to have a bar code generated each time the invoice is generated from each customers unique reference number

If anyone can shed some light on the best way to achieve the above I would appreciate your suggestions

Regards

Claude Raiola (B.Econ Acc; B.Hot. Mngt)

Dale Fraser

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Mar 20, 2012, 5:42:50 PM3/20/12

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The best way to do barcodes is an image.

Generate the barcode as an image then reference the image in the CF Report, we do charts in reports the same way.

There are lots of image libraries for generating barcodes, or you could try to write your own using the CF image tags

Finding a java library and calling it would probably be a lot easier

What barcode format are you using? I've mostly dealt with EAN-13 with is a product barcode, probably not what your using for invoicing.

Regards

Dale Fraser

http://dale.fraser.id.au

http://cfmldocs.com

http://learncf.com

http://flexcf.com

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rai...@ozemail.com.au

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Mar 20, 2012, 6:08:28 PM3/20/12

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Hi Dale

Thanks for that

Not sure what the format is it seems to be pretty standard to those used on Telstra bills etc

The barcode needs to be generated at the time of creating the invoice given each is unique any suggestions the best way to achieve this would be appreciated

I also note your comments re charts as it turns out I need graphs on the invoice as well which I was initially creating outside cfreport and the inserting as an image however I note that the graphs can be generated within report builder itself, wondering why you opt to generate them first and then insert the image rather than using the graph creation feature inside cf report builder

Regards

Claude Raiola (B.Econ Acc; B.Hot. Mngt)

Dale Fraser

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Mar 20, 2012, 6:40:00 PM3/20/12

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Well you need to find out the barcode format your using it will have a name or number, then google that to find a library.

As for the images, what we do

Is use cfimage stuff to make charts, store them with UUID.png names, then pass the names into the cfreport as paramaters

The report then just has an image (where you want the barcode) the path of the image is the UUID.png path you passed in.

Scott Thornton

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Mar 20, 2012, 5:46:34 PM3/20/12

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Bar codes are just fonts.

In the past I have used a font to display Bar Codes generated in Crystal reports.

A standard format for the code must be defined for item you are scanning, eg length and pre and postfix characters.

For example a Medical Record Number (I work in health) might represented as %0797613% which when displayed as a bar code, could be read by a bar code scanner .

You would need to install the font ( and there are free versions out there ) on your development machine and I assume the CF server(s). Maybe your bar code scanners come with a font they prefer.

Cheers,

From: cfau...@googlegroups.com [mailto:cfau...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of rai...@ozemail.com.au
Sent: Wednesday, 21 March 2012 2:34 AM
To: cfau...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [cfaussie] BarCode Generator with CF Report Builder

Hi,

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Zac Spitzer

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Mar 20, 2012, 10:03:29 PM3/20/12

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have you seen this library

http://code.google.com/p/zxing/

z

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Zac Spitzer
Solution Architect / Director
Ennoble Consultancy Australia
http://www.ennoble.com.au
http://zacster.blogspot.com
+61 405 847 168

Dale Fraser

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Mar 20, 2012, 10:14:06 PM3/20/12

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"Barcodes are just fonts".

That’s humorous, but incorrect, barcodes have been around long before they are readily available as fonts.

While many barcodes are available as fonts and this is a good suggestion, not all barcodes will be, so again it will depend on the barcode system your using.

If you do decide to use the iText barcode library for example, you can create an EAN-13 as follows

BarcodeEAN codeEAN = new BarcodeEAN();
codeEAN.setCodeType(codeEAN.EAN13);
codeEAN.setCode("9780201615883");
Image imageEAN = codeEAN.createImageWithBarcode(cb, null, null);