If you can install the font on your PC and open word and write some text in that font to get the result you want, then you can do it on the server.
Perhaps the reason you were seeing wingdings when you viewed their formula output is because you don't have the required fonts installed? If there is indeed a font that you can type and the font outputs the barcode (like in Word) then you can just use CF to call ActivePDF and send over the characters necessary to create the output and tell ActivePDf to use that font (which must be installed on the server to work correctly). John Burns Certified Advanced ColdFusion MX Developer Wyle Laboratories, Inc. | Web Developer -----Original Message----- From: Ali Awan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 12:08 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: Generating BarCodes in CF John, Yes, it is available in a font. The font is called PDF417, I believe. This sounds like the direction I may want to go in. Can you elaborate on how I could do that? We have ActivePDF installed on our server, could I do it using that? However, we can't just take plain text and apply the font to it. The plain text gets encoded into a series of binary "words" I believe. (I think it's the right terminology.... a binary string of 16 bits). Some guy came up with a formula that does the encoding. The formula itself is open source, and there's a SourceForge project out there, that claims to convert a text string to the 2D barcode. I downloaded it and ran their sample app, and all it does is convert the text into WingDings. That was one dead-end. Next, I found the website of some French dude that posted the entire formula for creating 2D barcodes. But since I'm not a PhD in Discrete Math, nor in Computer Science, it was way above my understanding/abilities/comprehension. Otherwise, I believe we may be able to use Coldfusion to generate the barcode if we can decipher the formula. Here's the guy's website: http://grandzebu.net/informatique/codbar-en/pdf417.htm He too claims to have a tool to encode plain text into a barcode. I downloaded it and ran it and all it did was convert my text into WingDings. So I don't know how much we can trust the formula he posts. However it looks confusing enough to be trusted :S Thanks, Ali -----Original Message----- From: Burns, John D [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 8:09 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: Generating BarCodes in CF Is that format available in a font? If so, you could install the font on the server and generate PDF docs with the bar code in that font. John Burns Certified Advanced ColdFusion MX Developer Wyle Laboratories, Inc. | Web Developer -----Original Message----- From: Ali Awan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 11:07 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: Generating BarCodes in CF Thanks for the links, but as I mentioned in my email these are in the category of... >>> There are some off-the-shelf cfapps that generate barcodes but not >>>in that format They don't support the 2D (PDF417) format that I'm looking for. Thanks anyway, Ali -----Original Message----- From: CFDEV [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, April 04, 2005 4:58 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: Generating BarCodes in CF http://www.fusionzone.com/ http://www.infosoftglobal.com/PoS4TallyPro/index1.html -----Original Message----- From: Ali Awan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: April 4, 2005 18:48 To: CF-Talk Subject: Generating BarCodes in CF I was wondering if anyone knows of any CF apps, or used CF to connect to 3rd party apps to generate barcodes. Specifically 2D barcodes. If you are familiar with barcodes, you will know what that means :-) There are some off-the-shelf cfapps that generate barcodes but not in that format. Also, if not, does anyone have experience in using CF to embed an image into a Word Document. Help with any or both of those issues would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Ali ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Find out how CFTicket can increase your company's customer support efficiency by 100% http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=49 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:201523 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
