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 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
Logware (www.logware.us): a new and convenient web-based time tracking 
application. Start tracking and documenting hours spent on a project or with a 
client with Logware today. Try it for free with a 15 day trial account.
http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=67

Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:201525
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=89.70.4
Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54

Reply via email to