BCR Barcoding: generate & edit

[jean-claudegrimberghs]

Dear all

Two questions regarding BCR barcoding.

BCR barcode is the code that must be edited on the first face of each sheet of paper, allowing a folding machine to process the documents.

The BCR code contains at least the sequence number of the current page and the total number of pages in the document.

remark: the page be printed on one face (recto) or on two faces (recto/verso).

1. Does somebody knows wich code type must be used editing such BCR code?
2. Do you know if there is a SAP tool giving, at edition time, by sheet of paper the current sheet number and the last sheet number.
   Please take in account that the sheet of paper may be printed on one or two sides.

I Thank you all for your help.

[Private_Member_7726]

Hi,

1. Well, isn't the "folding machine" known and doesn't it come with guidelines - including, what kind of barcodes it can read and what information should be encoded how?

2. Assuming we are talking about printing (outputing) documents here... SAP Smartform has a feature called Final Window, which are processed when the rest of the contents (all document pages, in other words) have been output. This permits to output "Page x of total pages y" kind of page counters. SAP Smartfoms also support a range of common barcodes.

cheers

Jānis

[jean-claudegrimberghs]

Hi

Thank you for your help.

[Private_Member_7726]

Forgot to add, before building interface to our current OMS (Output Management System), where we pass information using comments placed in PostScript print stream generated by SAP Spool system, and where the OMS then takes care of placing DataMatrix barcode to control "Folding/Enveloping machine", we were outputting so called "simple" OMR marks (lines of certain thickness) along the left edge of the front face of document using Smartforms features other than barcode... That was a complex (encoding and representing every bit) and pain to maintain solution, prone to breaking when the page structure of documents needed to change.

OMS is the proper place to implement "physical" details of document sorting, folding, enveloping features for mass printing, I feel... especially if there are multiple SAP systems involved. The system producing documents just needs to know and be able to influence a few simple features, per document - these documents belong together in an envelope and the sequence of documents in envelope, for example. The obvious advantage of our current solution is: there is not a single sorting/folding/enveloping related Form element in the Smartform layouts themselves... the custom solution that sits between SAP Application Form/Smartform processing runtime and SAP Spool System takes care of adding requisite stuff to OTF "output stream" (SAP Spool request contents) that result in comments to satisfy interface to OMS, when SAP Spool system produces Postscript.

Smartforms also have some features for rotating barcodes, but I have no experience with them.

It's always easier to respond to concrete issues rather than "generic" inquiries

cheers

Jānis