Illustrator Barcode Plugin

[simonl]

Hi,

We have been asked by a client to set ITF-14 barcodes at 25%, we've tried setting it using Esko's Dynamic Barcode plugin, however because it is going to such a small magnification it has an issue with the human readable characters (they overlap). I have contacted Esko and they say they will perhaps add it as a "wish" in the next release - which is clearly no good to us as we need to set them now.

I have tried to set it in Artpro however get the same issue and the warning message "ITF magnification should be between 62.5% and 120%".
Whilst this was once true, now the ITF-14 specs state that it can be reduced down to 25% for non automated scanning.

Does anyone know of a barcode plugin for illustrator that will be able to set such a barcode? We will need to set hundreds so manually setting the human readable characters isn't really an option (also we wouldn't want to make any mistakes).

Unfortunately we are unable to persuade our client to use a different type of barcode. Any help would be much appreciated.

Many thanks

SimonL

 

[chad.trent]

We buy our codes from Symbology, and they come to us as Illustrator files, so we can scale them to whatever size they need to be. There are a number of reasons we buy our codes now rather than producing them ourselves, but I won't get into that right now.

If you want to make them yourself, check out Barcode Producer - Barcode Software for Mac - Barcode Generator

However, you'll still have to type in the numbers to create the code no matter what approach you take, so it may be easier (and obivously cheaper) to just replace the numbers on the Esko codes.

 

[rich apollo]

Is it not possible to convert the codes to outlines and then scale them?

 

[Al Ferrari]

The convert to outlines method can also be carried out in the Indesign or Quark layout for the package if either of those are being used. If so, a script may be possible for automation.

Al

 

[Wags]

I believe trying to scale the barcode after it is created will possibly give unusable results. The scanners read the widths of the lines and if scaled will change this dimension. I think this is why you should not scale more than 20% either way.

 

[chad.trent]

Scaling won't change them, provided they are scaled the same proportion horizontally and vertically. It's the relationship of the lines and spaces that allows the readers to decode the bar codes. It will get to a point that it can be too small or too large for the readers to recognize, but if you stay within GS1 specs (25% to 100%) it's fine.

 

[cindy313]

Hi,

We have been asked by a client to set ITF-14 barcodes at 25%, we've tried setting it using Esko's Dynamic Barcode plugin, however because it is going to such a small magnification it has an issue with the human readable characters (they overlap). I have contacted Esko and they say they will perhaps add it as a "wish" in the next release - which is clearly no good to us as we need to set them now.

I have tried to set it in Artpro however get the same issue and the warning message "ITF magnification should be between 62.5% and 120%".
Whilst this was once true, now the ITF-14 specs state that it can be reduced down to 25% for non automated scanning.

Does anyone know of a barcode plugin for illustrator that will be able to set such a barcode? We will need to set hundreds so manually setting the human readable characters isn't really an option (also we wouldn't want to make any mistakes).

Unfortunately we are unable to persuade our client to use a different type of barcode. Any help would be much appreciated.

Many thanks

SimonL

i know a website about ITF-14 barcode,does the barcode image setting help solve the problem? where has sth.to do with human readable text