[Gloucs] barcoding

[Guy Edwards]

On Wed, 2003-04-30 at 02:43, Dave Elliott wrote:
>   I have never had the good or bad fortune to actually have to set a system
> up (excepting some involvement in printing address barcode labels from JDE
> ERP system) but as your question was so delightfully broad, perhaps a few
> pointers of my 'understanding' of the situation might provoke a useful
> thought or two. Please take all notes in the good spirit they are provided
> ... and obviously without warranty..
[snip]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the big email, sorry for the late reply.

I'm building (or have built most of) a mysql/php website for tracking
stock that gets loaned out to different people within a company. I
didn't want to be cheeky and ask specific questions as it's for some
coursework.

I found a usb barcode scanner that plugs straight in and generates codes
as if typed in at the keyboard. (nb its a windows client machine - not
my fault) It also presses enter after each scan which is handy if you
have a web interface (submit button) as it speeds it up nicely. The
numbers come out in straight 12345 format so I assume it has a decoder
built in as you mentioned.

I've also just found this great little program
http://www.mribti.com/barcode/sample.php
that is a web front end for creating barcode images from a serial number
you give it which is just what I needed (and it's in PHP). Like you said
in your email (about the different coding types) I will need to check it
tomorrow to see if it creates the same barcodes as the scanner reads.

The printer sounds like the main problem, I can see it being a nightmare
to get a normal printer to print off an individual barcode on a sheet of
stickers. The dedicated barcode printers on the internet all ominously
don't have the price tag shown, which usually means it's going to be
very expensive. I will keep looking however.

If it all works out in the end I will put all the code on a CD and
anyone else who wants to run some kind of stock loan system with/without
barcoding can have it.

Guy