OOo developers, The suggestion that OOo should include a native barcode generation utility has been raised on several occasions in the past [1]. Those discussions have tended to digress into expounding the inadequacy of barcode fonts for most barcode formats and, so far as I can tell, no real progress has been made in this area.
I would like to recommend my open source PostScript barcoding library, Barcode Writer in Pure PostScript (BWIPP) [2], as the most suitable backend for this purpose. The project supports every major one-dimensional barcode format (or "symbology"). It also supports the major two-dimensional symbologies albeit requiring some detailed knowledge on the part of the user [3]. The library is mature, well field-tested and is the backend to the barcode generators in Scribus, KBarcode, LaTeX (via PStricks), some special-purpose plugins to commercial DTP products and is optionally embedded into the firmware of some brands of PostScript printers – the latter being under NDAs otherwise I'd be more specific. The introduction of the barcode generator feature in Scribus was hailed with many subsequent press reviews along the lines of "Scribus even includes ... features not present in commercial DTP offerings, such as native barcode generation." [4] I'm sure that there would be both a strong business case and community requirement for the development of a native barcode generator for OOo since this would certainly place the product ahead of similar commercial offerings in this respect. Furthermore, when its potential is unleashed in combination with automation features such as mail-merge and macros, it would bring a refreshing enhancement to the AIDC [5] industry, specifically in the field of barcode label generation. I am volunteering my assistance to any OOo developer that is interested in adding a native, cross-platform barcode generation feature to OOo based on BWIPP. Due to time constraints my support would likely be limited to providing expertise in the specifics of the barcode symbologies, assistance with the advanced use of the BWIPP library, feature testing and debugging, rather than actual OOo coding - I prefer to focus my coding time on development of the library itself so that everyone can potentially benefit. Fonts aside, the way that users currently include barcodes is their documents is by importing barcode images from either external software or web-based barcode generators (such as [6]) using the Insert -> Picture -> From File... feature. This method is inconvenient and error-prone such as when user imports a raster image which they subsequently rescale or process in some way that obscures its meaning – a vector image such as an SVG or EPS file is somewhat more resilient. The most straightforward approach would be the creation of a dialog (say Insert -> Object -> Barcode...) that accepts the parameters for the barcode, creates the correponding EPS code (this is what BWIPP makes completely trivial) and then places the picture in the current document/spreadsheet, etc. This would greatly simplify the task of vector-based barcode image creation so that users would not be required depend on external resources for this task. The approach taken by either Scribus or KBarcode makes it clear what is required. Although to be really useful it would be necessary to create a "barcode object" so that users could adjust the properties of a barcode without starting over. Furthermore, it should be possible to create custom barcodes within a form letter for use during a mail merge, or even to poplulate a spreadsheet cell with a barcode image whose contents is based on the result of a calculation... I'm sure that there are many other uses that I haven't thought of. I'd be interested to find out how much interest there is in such a development and would be happy to answer any questions that you may have along these lines. Thanks for entertaining this long post and for continuing to make OOo such a great product. I hope that I can find some way to contribute to further improving it. Warm regards, Tez [1] http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=discuss&msgNo=14797; http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?listName=users&msgNo=95738; http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?listName=discuss&msgNo=56430; http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?listName=users&msgNo=126459 [2] http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/ [3] The next major milestones on the roadmap for BWIPP address this issue making 2D barcodes much simpler to use. [4] http://www.terryburton.co.uk/blog/2006/05/linux-format-mentions-barcodes-in.html [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_identification_and_data_capture [6] http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/generator/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
