Barcode Software

[raminmd]

Hi all,

We are a digital print shop and we print a lot of packages all over the country. We have an ecommerce site with a custom shopping cart and we have our own internal system to manage the workflow.

One of the issues we have is accuracy of shipments. Our shipping process is currently partly manual and this causes mistakes. We would like to integrate a barcode solution to prevent this. Essentially, we would print the job ticket with the barcode. The printed job (postcards, brochures etc.) would have a sample top sheet with the same barcode. When shipping gets it, they would need to scan both the job ticket and the barcode on the sample printed piece and the shipping label would print.

We have the programmers who can code this. We are currently looking at which barcode software would help us accomplish this. We would need to be able to program the generation of barcodes and the printing of the shipping label (or at least a redirect to a URL where can print the shipping label) using the barcodes.

Is there any barcode package that I should look into. To clarify, I am not looking for a full scale print MIS solution....only a barcode solution that will help us minimize/prevent shipping errors.

Thanks.

 

[Repro_Pro]

If all you need is a simple numeric string for ID, than it may well be solved by the use of a generic barcode font in your program..

 

[jrhmobile]

You may want to check out BarTender by Seagull Scientific for generating your barcodes. It's flexible for inputs, outputs 2-D barcodes which can incorporate a lot of data in a code the size of an indicia on your job tickets, and is flexible enough to incorporate addresses, contacts, internal tracking data and varied output options which makes it extensible when it comes to snapping it into office applications, database and project management software.

I don't have a stake in recommending this. I don't sell this stuff; I just have some experience with it and it works well.

Be advised, though, that this may also take scanner, software — and often hardware — commitments downstream if you want to use it to full advantage. To get the most out of it, you'll likely want more than a barcode scanner in the shipping room. If you keep that in mind from the front end, this can do a lot more for you than crank out the right mailing labels. And if you let your IT folks study this before installing it, set it all up for little extra effort than it'll take to cut the error rate in your mailing operation.

 

[PDL]

If you are doing your design work in Adobe Illustrator then Esko's Dynamic Content may work for you. Using XML and Esko Deskpack plugins for Ai you can generate barcodes and more. Here's the info --->https://www.esko.com/en/products/dynamic-content. Good of luck in your quest.

 

[davarino]

Hi all,

We are a digital print shop and we print a lot of packages all over the country. We have an ecommerce site with a custom shopping cart and we have our own internal system to manage the workflow.

One of the issues we have is accuracy of shipments. Our shipping process is currently partly manual and this causes mistakes. We would like to integrate a barcode solution to prevent this. Essentially, we would print the job ticket with the barcode. The printed job (postcards, brochures etc.) would have a sample top sheet with the same barcode. When shipping gets it, they would need to scan both the job ticket and the barcode on the sample printed piece and the shipping label would print.

We have the programmers who can code this. We are currently looking at which barcode software would help us accomplish this. We would need to be able to program the generation of barcodes and the printing of the shipping label (or at least a redirect to a URL where can print the shipping label) using the barcodes.

Is there any barcode package that I should look into. To clarify, I am not looking for a full scale print MIS solution....only a barcode solution that will help us minimize/prevent shipping errors.

Thanks.

You can accomplish this with a spreadsheet and use a public domain "font" like Free 3 of 9. A macro can make it a very simple procedure.

BTW, barcodes usually need delimiters. For 3 of 9 use an asterisk at front and end of line. You can add asterisks to spreadsheet material with this cell:
=concatenate(“*”,A1,”*”) (if we are taking cell A1 and adding the asterisks)

 

[helloWorld]

Hi all,

We are a digital print shop and we print a lot of packages all over the country. We have an ecommerce site with a custom shopping cart and we have our own internal system to manage the workflow.

One of the issues we have is accuracy of shipments. Our shipping process is currently partly manual and this causes mistakes. We would like to integrate a barcode solution to prevent this. Essentially, we would print the job ticket with the barcode. The printed job (postcards, brochures etc.) would have a sample top sheet with the same barcode. When shipping gets it, they would need to scan both the job ticket and the barcode on the sample printed piece and the shipping label would print.

We have the programmers who can code this. We are currently looking at which barcode software would help us accomplish this. We would need to be able to program the generation of barcodes and the printing of the shipping label (or at least a redirect to a URL where can print the shipping label) using the barcodes.

Is there any barcode package that I should look into. To clarify, I am not looking for a full scale print MIS solution....only a barcode solution that will help us minimize/prevent shipping errors.

Thanks.

What imposition solution are you using? In most cases, the software which is creating the imposition layouts will be responsible for barcoding the printed sheet to track the job as the job progresses through print/lamination/finishing/etc...

In full disclosure, I work for Tilia Labs and we develop imposition solutions to manage the dynamic imposition for your print files. Our product, tilia Phoenix, also has built in barcoding and dynamic text which can be driven with data from your e-commerce platform and added to each job/sheet.

Here is a great video from one of our customers who is barcoding every job from their e-commerce platform via tilia Phoenix to track the job through their shop.