what is the best barcode scanner to buy?

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my_lou

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Nov 10, 2003
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hey folks,

i am looking into purchasing a new barcode scanner for the application i am working on. can anyone recommend any good ones? i'll also need to draw/generate barcodes in my application so i guess it would be nice if i could get some sort of a bundle, something like barcode scanner that comes with user control for generating barcodes and printing them on labels.
any ideas?

thanks all.
 
Make sure you get one, that plugs in through your keyboard port, and your keyboard then plugs into that - it will make it very easy to program.
 
that makes sense, but could you elaborate a bit. i am total newbe in dealing with barcodes, :-)

i thought i'd give some more information about the app i am working on in case somebody else gets in on the thread and wanted to answer my question: it is essentially a bookstore mangement app. it handles six main functions: book inventory, ordering of new books from vendors/publishers, processing newly arrived books, selling books, book buy back, and re-selling books to vendors.

i've done some research and i found out that a barcode system generally consists of 4 parts:

1. Printing barcodes
2. Generating barcodes and applying them on labels
3. Scanning barcodes
4. External database

Now, i already have the external database set up and working and i there is no way around purchasing a scanner so that's 3 and 4 out of the way (although there is still the question about which scanner to buy).

As far as printing the barcodes, we already have a label printer in use in my organization for printing small number of labels, 1 or 2, and for large numbers i can just use regular printer.

Generating the barcodes and applying them on labels is where i am sort of stuck. We currently use a shareware program for the generation part so i am now exploring the possibility of integrating said program in my VB.NET application somehow. Another free (that's the keyword here) option would be to use some of the free barcode fonts available and do some coding to generate the barcodes myself.

As far as labeling, would it be possible to somehow get the generated barcode and paste in a Word document? The Word document in question could be a label template of sorts. Word docs are easy enough to print.

thanks all.
 
I actually deal with barcodes via UNIX, i have never used barcodes with .NET. But anyhow.

With a keyboard scanner, you scan a barcode and the date within the barcode appears on the screen, exactly as if you had typed it via the keyboard. Technically you could print off the alphabet, a barcode for each letter and then write a book, just by scanning the correct barcode. Absolutely no progamming needed and only takes about 5 seconds to set up.

HP printers are argueably the best printing barcodes, but u need a decent laser printer, and then buy a barcode simm to plug into it, which works out quite expensive.

You then send a control character to the printer to activate the barcode chip, for instance

.print '^[(s1p72v0s3b16602T' (q0)
.println hod

this is a couple of lines taken from a report at work. This prints the word hod, on its own line.

Alternatively, you could always 'draw' a barcode on a picturebox and then print that straight off like a printer. This would be a lot cheaper, but hugely hard to program.


That is pretty much everything to do with the barcodes.
 
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