[Koha] BarCode Printing

[Zeki CELIKBAS]

Quoting H S Rai <hsrai at edumail.nic.in>:

> 
> For the timing, I would like to know how to print barcode. Is it
> possible through Koha or some other program.
> 

Hi H. S. Rai

You can print barcodes with afew aplications in linux. One of this is kbarcode 
this is a X windows application here is website:

http://www.kbarcode.net/

I haven't try this software, but this software is using GNU's barcode program at 
backward which I use before.

GNU's barcode software one of best program to create barcodes. In fact you can 
solve all barcoding problems using GNU's barcode software. It's web site is:

http://www.gnu.org/directory/GNU/barcode.html

When you download the program you have to untar and  complie it with these 
commands:

to untar:
   tar xzvf barcode-0.98.tar.gz
to compile change to barcode-0.98 directory and type:
    ./configure && make && make install

now you can type barcode --help to show all options. First of all you have to 
decide which kind of barcodes (barcode encoding standard) you will use. Here is 
some information:

ean: we are using ean barcodes at university library. Many market products uses 
this standart. This barcodes consist of 13 figures and a checksum figure. we are 
using with this structure 
first three figure is instute's code, second 6 figure is book numbers and third 
three figure is book type and of course last is checksum figure and it will ber 
automaticaly creating. ex: 011-005077-001-0 (no dash in real barcode)

code 39: this standart is much more flexsible you can use any alfanumeric 
characters to produce a barcode (ex: 12345ABC)

You can find and be informed about this standarts at this page:
http://www.makebarcode.com/specs/speclist.html

If you know perl/C/pyton you can write a script for different needed to produce 
barcodes. But the basic command will be like this:

barcode -i list -o bcodes.ps -e ean -t 3x7 

-i filename  list file consist of string every line to be encoded 
-o filename  a postscript file you will be see and print your barcodes
-e encoding  encoding methods
-t table     how you want to see and print your barcodes at page?

of course you can change margins, page layout etc.

The last thing is that; about every barcode readers can read all of this formats 
even you can buy an old second hand model to see if it is working. This barcode 
readers usualy share with your mouse or keyboard input with a plug in cable. 
Usualy no driver is needed. 

Best regards.

Zeki Celikbas



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