Crystal 2008, Barcode 39 & Special Characters

Former Member — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:17:36 GMT

Some of our inventory items contain special characters. I have run a quick test in Crystal 2008 using the Code39 and Code39 Full ASCII, and am having the following problems with some of them:

1) Does not scan at all or

2) Scans with the ASCII translation

I have created a report with string formulas that all have '0123456n'. I replaced 'n' with a special character. I then put each formula on the report twice, formatting one as a Code39 and the other as Code39FullASCII (through the Change to Barcode... formatting). I also changed the font size to 36pt from 24pt. We've used Azalea barcodes in the past, and 24pt was too small. I then printed the report out and tried scanning the barcodes. I received the following results:

Item#                       Code39                    Code39FullASCII
0123456~                  Did not scan           Scanned as 0123456%S

0123456!                   Did not scan           Scanned as 0123456/A

0123456@                 Did not scan           Scanned as 0123456%V

0123456#                   Did not scan            Scanned as 0123456/C

0123456$                   Scanned fine           Scanned as 0123456/D

0123456%                  Scanned fine           Scanned as 0123456/E

0123456^                    Did not scan            Scanned as 0123456%N

0123456&                   Did not scan            Scanned as 0123456/F

0123456*                    Did not scan            Scanned as 0123456/J

0123456(                    Did not scan            Scanned as 0123456/H

0123456)                    Did not scan            Scanned as 0123456/I

0123456-                    Scanned fine            Scanned fine

0123456_                   Did not scan            Scanned as 0123456%O

0123456=                   Did not scan            Scanned as 0123456%H

0123456+                   Scanned fine           Scanned as 0123456/K

0123456{                    Did not scan            Scanned as 0123456%P

0123456}                    Did not scan             Scanned as 0123456%R

0123456.                    Scanned fine            Scanned fine

0123456:                    Did not scan             Scanned as 0123456/Z

The results:

'Did not scan' means the scanner did nothing

'Scanned fine' means the scanner translated it as the item/special characters appear

'Scanned as...' means the scanner translated the special character.

Why did some of these scan fine for both barcodes?

Why did some not scan at all for Code39, but then did for Code39FullASCII?

What barcode 39 font scans ALL special characters as they appear?

Thank you.

Re: Crystal 2008, Barcode 39 & Special Characters

vitaly_izmaylov — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 22:06:10 GMT

Please review the following document:

[http://www.azalea.com/Code39/C39ToolsDocumentation.pdf]

it says:

"Your string must include only characters from Code 39 character set ..."

You will find that you are getting positive results only if the character is in the list.

Hope it helps

Re: Crystal 2008, Barcode 39 & Special Characters

Former Member — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:32:51 GMT

I will look this over and get back to you. Thank you.

Re: Crystal 2008, Barcode 39 & Special Characters

Former Member — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:03:00 GMT

Read through the document, thank you.

Will update our users to let them know the restrictions on the code 39 character set.

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