Back in the Early 80s, when IBM System/36s and other dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, I recall some frustrating times trying to design and print bar code labels on a S/36 dot-matrix printer. The printer used a special graphics card that had to be programmed by sending ESC sequences from the S/36, a process that was incredibly tedious, necessitating endless trial and error using different ESC sequences to get the desired positioning and dimensions.

What a difference a couple of decades makes! Although today bar code label design is much less of the chore it was on the S/36, it's still easiest of all if you use a label design product that handles many functions for you automatically. One such product is T.L. Ashford's Barcode400, a tool that helps you design and generate bar code labels quickly.

Designing Labels

Barcode400 label specifications are called label formats, which you create using either the green-screen Label Design Program (LDP) or the Windows-based Graphic Label Designer (GLD). Barcode400's iSeries label print program uses label formats, so they must reside on the iSeries. Label formats contain specifications for label dimensions and the target printer, as well as the information that will print on the label, such as bar codes, text, lines, boxes, and logos.

The GLD works with Windows 3.1 or greater and offers a GUI label design environment. Although the GLD doesn't require an active iSeries connection to work, you'll need a connection to transfer label formats and bitmaps to the iSeries when you're ready to print. The GLD supports TCP/IP connections as well as older NS/Router connections to the iSeries.

Labels can consist of any assortment of bar codes, text fields, bitmaps, lines, boxes, and text blocks. Text fields are single-line text strings, whereas a text block is a set of up to 99 text lines. To design your label, you simply select the information object (e.g., bar code, text field) and place it anywhere in the label GLD workspace. Barcode400 lets you rotate objects 90, 180, and 270 degrees. Figure 1 shows a sample design screen.

After you position a bar code, text field, or text block on the label, you then specify where it obtains its data. The choices are: (1) as a predefined constant, in which the data remains the same between label printing runs; (2) from a specified field in a database; (3) from a user prompt screen that appears at print time; (4) from the system date or time; and finally (5) as an auto-incremented or decremented field. For example, you can define a bar code to use a fixed constant value or assign a value based on a part number field in a product database.

The auto-increment field is especially helpful when generating labels that specify carton numbers. For example, if the only difference between each label in a group of them is that the carton number changes for each label, such as "1 of 6," "2 of 6," and so on, it's easy to print sequential labels for any number of cartons. You can also take advantage of special functions for bar codes and text fields, such as the ability to add prefixes and suffixes, as well as string concatenation and extraction functions.

You can upload and download label formats using the connection to the iSeries, and you can print test labels from GLD to the iSeries via the connection. An iSeries connection is also helpful when assigning a bar code, text field, or text box to a database field because the GLD can retrieve a list of fields for the specified iSeries table.

If for some reason you aren't able to use the Windows-based GDP, Barcode400 includes a green-screen LDP that gives you the ability to design label formats. But as you might expect, it's more difficult and inconvenient to use the green-screen design program. For example, you must manually enter the X and Y coordinates for all information used on the label, as well as specifying dimensions.

Barcode400 supports a wide variety of printers and fonts. It also lets you specify how the labels are dispensed (e.g., tear-off, cutter, peel-and-apply), label stock to use (e.g., gap, black mark, continuous), and number of labels per row.

If designing labels in a GUI environment sounds more convenient and productive than more labor-intensive methods you may be using now, you can request a fully functional demo CD directly from the vendor.

Chuck Lundgren is a senior technical editor for iSeries NEWS. You can reach him at clundgren@iSeriesNetwork.com.

Solution Spotlight is a feature of iSeries NEWS that provides more in-depth coverage of significant iSeries products. Offerings are selected for Solution Spotlight by iSeries NEWS editorial staff, based on staff perception of the product as either new or innovative, or because the product is the subject of extensive discussions in Internet forums on iSeriesNetwork.com and elsewhere.