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Barcode trouble/ please help.

Started by yuri102, 2011.01.18, 12:30:35

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yuri102

Hi there.

I have trouble on os/2 system. This includes print barcode lines in os/2 system editor. The Int48DlTt barcode font has Extended ANSI chars collection in range 30-128 and 8 chars in extended part of table.

These codes are C4, C5, C7, C9, D1, D6, DC, E1 (hex) and they must print as barcode lines on display and printer.
The problem is consist of square reflection instead of lines. Range 30-128 normally reflects as lines, but C4, C5, C7, C9, D1, D6, DC, E1 chars reflects as squares.  :( ???

Barcodes are emitted by russian post service. The Int48DlTt font includes C4, C5, C7, C9, D1, D6, DC, E1 lines reflection.Anybody  can to help me, how to resolve problem with square spaces?

warpcafe

#1
Hi Yuri,

can you attach a screenshot?
I have a vague idea of what you mean with "squares"... but it would help to see.
How does the thing look if you use StarOffice/OpenOffice and actually *print* them? The same?

Is this barcode font freely available?
If so - where can I get it to have a look and try it myself?
Is it a TrueType, Adobe-1, ...or a bitmap/"screen" font?

(I find it interesting that it works for the first 127 bytes of the character set... is there some 7-bit vs. 8-bit problem with that font perhaps?)

Cheers,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

yuri102

My sreenshots on windows xp(Far, Notepad), but the same behavour is at OS/2(system OS/2 editor). Seems trouble dsn't independ on editor.

warpcafe

Okay, that's what I thought.
Usually, the square means that there is no data (vector, curve, bitmap) for the character in the fontfile.
So to say "unused" place in the font.

Hmm... since you're running Windows, did you check this font with "charmap"?
Start > Run > "charmap"
Then load the barcode font by selecting it from the llistbox.
Perhaps you can see the character you expected in a different location.

Hope this helps,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

yuri102


yuri102

#5
I look through "char map". These problem characters are available only there.
look screenshot please.

Any idea?

jep

#6
Does your software use the VIO (Character mode) view or perhaps a GUI? Your Command Line view/edit indicate just that.

VIO use a different code page here, 850 compared to Win GUI applications 1252.
You may experience something similar, 866 compared to Win GUI applications 1251.

Change the encoding from "Unicode" to e.g. "DOS: American" or "DOS: Cyrillic" (Dropdown below the characters) to see the available bar codes and their position if they differ and may explain why you see the problems.

You don't have those problems if you use OS/2-eComStation as the code pages usually are the same throughout both GUI and VIO.

yuri102

Dos:American and Dos: Cyrillic tables screenshots:

warpcafe

Hi Yuri,

as jep has explained, it seems to be a codepage problem (or a problem when resolving codepages). But:

More interesting for me is to understand: What do you want to do in OS/2 with this font?
- Are you running a DOS program in OS/2 that has this problem?
- Or is it a native OS/2 program?
- if OS/2 program: Is it a GUI (graphic/PM) or a VIO (text mode) program?

Hint: There is a shareware (free trial) version of "fontfolder" at hobbes.
This can be used to get a better view on the fonts in OS/2 (a bit like "charmap" in Windows)

Cheers,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

yuri102

we use os/2 native program (datacentral.exe). this program use datacard 7000 printing hardware, including mail printer, card personalization printer. The mail printer do lists, which has a postal barcode for russia mail service.

Mail service is a source of barcodes to our datacard 7000 and rarely some barcodes contains second-part ansi table character. This give us troubles with it.

warpcafe

Hi,

OK, so I guess the trouble is that you are using a windows TrueType font on an OS/2 system... (?) which may result in wrong codepage being used. Not sure though. And even if this is correct, I can only assume you *could* fix that with the "codepage=...,..." statement. Who knows. Not me. :(

So to be honest: I don't have a clue. :(

Perhaps (maybe,maybe...) Alex Taylor has some idea on what could be wrong. But I'm sure the more experienced people can give some insight as well. If all fails, I'll try to download the TTFs and play around with it. That might take a while until I have the time to do this though...

Cheers,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

RobertM

Thomas and jep seem to be on to the solution here. What you will need to do is find the correct codepage which will allow the full representation of the font's charset needed. Then, you will have to use that codepage when displaying and printing the font. Alternately, you could find a barcode fontset that has a codepage that matches your normal codepage (or use a font editor to move the fonts around to match your current codepage selection).


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yuri102

Thanks all for replies.
In fact, config.sys on os/2 contains codepage=866,850. I tried change codepage to 866 only and restart system, but problem still here.
Also, it was DEVICE=C:\OS2\BOOT\UNICODE.SYS, then add ansi.sys yet.
Finally, ansy.sys was left only.

But this problem still here...

I can try play with codepage=...,... but have no idea about values.
Simplify once, changing for config.sys, it was introduction to crash system and repaire one. Because its, I afraid to play often.

warpcafe

Hi,

again, I am not sure, but... did you try to change the sequence and make "850" be the first one?
(This is what it looks like for me 850,837 to have German characters AND line-chars)

It MAY be usefult to also play with the "windows" codepages here... but I have NO IDEA if that works in OS/2!

Regards,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

yuri102

So, may be to play with windows xp codepage at first. But i don't know, where is that codepage? is it Regional Settings box?
Sorry for inconvenience please