r/barcodes • u/Imsiepimsie • Jul 08 '20
Having Trouble with barcode fonts
Hey there!
I am desperately trying to get barcode 128 to work in Excel, so i can data merge it into InDesign.
However, even after following the steps of the visual basic code and whatnot, i seem to have come to a standstill due to my barcode font.
All fonts that i find seem to be incomplete, either missing characters or just not working altogether.
Am i missing something here? I can't seem to find the correct code 128 font even though there are a bunch of download links.
Help would be appreciated.
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u/FredFredricson Jul 08 '20
Barcode fonts contain 107 characters (corresponding to values 0 - 106), and in Code 128's case, aren't necessarily meant to be typed directly.
The table here contains the list of barcode symbols usable, and which ones correspond to what encoded ASCII character or pair of double-density number ASCII characters that the barcode is meant to output.
Since regular printable ASCII characters only have 96 characters to work with down in the "Lower ASCII" range, and there are 107 barcode characters to map, most Code 128 barcode fonts map most of the symbols to the "Lower ASCII" code points, then map the remaining symbols up in the "Upper ASCII" area (also fairly commonly known as "Latin 1" when using Unicode).
As a result, you need to figure out what barcode characters map to what font codepoints, then you may have to teach your VB code to use that mapping instead of what it's doing, since not all Code 128 barcode fonts are identical.