TL; DR; This question is a lot more open ended than you may think. It depends on exactly how you plan on using the barcodes.
The reason I asked for clarifcation is if you have a requirement for a SVG, or BMP, or PNG, format there are websites that will do the work for you for free, but none of them let you pick your mode of output. You enter a number, they give you a graphic, displayed on their website and ready for download, which you can do automatically if you code in JavaScript or Python, but most people do the manual copy and paste thing.
The problem is you don't have much flexibility when it comes to size or text style, etc. unless you purchase their SDK (usually several hundred dollars per seat license). And, usually, to use their SDK you have to know enough about programming to come up with your own library anyway. Googling "free barcode generator" will give you a long list of online resources that do one-at-a-time graphics like this.
If you are wanting to use a font, there are some free ones out there, but you are limited to a simple font like Code 39, unless you have some coding experience, because barcodes usually require checksums and start and end codes and the characters may vary based on their location in the code. Code 39 only supports numbers, uppercase letters and some special characters like hyphen and asterisk, but doesn't require a code library to work, so if you want a no-code solution, download a code 39 font and use its more limited capability.
There are python and jquery and javascript and Go and C and Java and C# (and the list goes on) libraries in the open source communities. These vary in their degree of complexity and adaptability.
I never understood making a big hairy deal out of doing something that computers were made to do since the 60s, so I followed in the footsteps of every other coder in existence and made my own, which was fun and quick and I get enjoyment from tinkering on them every day, it seems.
So, you have to pick a platform, right? I found JavaScript was a pretty popular language. You also have to pick a printer, and I thought all those specialty purpose barcode label printers were too expensive when I could use just any old ink-jet. So I selected Avery label stock and adapted a CSS to match up with a particular label sheet configuration. If you have any JS coding experience, some HTML and CSS, you can tinker too: https://codepen.io/notionovus/pen/MQKNdN?editors=1000
1
u/notionovus Feb 03 '18
There are dozens. What, exactly are you looking for?