Barcode 2D Macros for Office

- The complete 2D barcode solution for Microsoft Office

Features:

Easy to use - just select, point and click.
In-cell formula for Excel
Includes Active-X control for dynamic barcode production.
Macro source code included for easy customisation
May be called from your own macros, modules, or key shortcuts.
Macros are provided for Aztec, Datamatrix, PDF417 and QR Code symbols.
Bar width control for wet-ink printing allows 0 - 50% width reduction.

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Licensing

Available as a single computer product or as a multi-user version for installation on up to 10 PCs.
Note: Barcode Macros for Office is an end-user product. Developers requiring similar functionality for redistribution should use the dBarcode-2D Developers Kit.

System requirements

Requires Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, and one or more of the following components of Microsoft Office: Word (2002-2010), Excel (2002-2010), Access (2002-2010). Includes samples for Office 2003, Office 2007/2010 and the 64 bit Office 2010 with VBA7.

Active barcodes in Word

An Active 2D Barcode Control may be placed on a Word document by selecting the More Controls icon in the toolbox (which, if not visible, can be displayed by checking the Controls Toolbox member of the View – Toolbars menu) and choosing Active 2 dBarcode Control from the list of Object types available. In Word 2007 the toolbox appears in the Control pane of the Developer toolbar. To make the Developer toolbar visible select the Office icon, choose Word Options and in the Popular pane check the checkbox labelled “Show Developer tab in the ribbon”.

The default barcode image is displayed. Right click on the image and choose Properties from the pop-up menu.
The Properties box shows the current properties of the barcode which may be edited as required – including the Caption property which sets the barcode data.

2D Barcodes in Word

Note that the control can be selected and its properties displayed only when Word is in Design mode. Design mode may be turned on or off using the top lefthand icon of the Control toolbox (or the Design mode icon in Office 2007).

Word and Mail-merge

Word's mail-merge is suitable only for font-based barcodes. The merge data must already exist and contain the correct characters to form the barcode when displayed in the barcode font. While the data can come from any source a typical example is where the data is in an Excel spreadsheet and where the font-based barcodes within the spreadsheet have already been created using the FBarcode macro within Excel, or by using the in-line barcode() function.

A sample mail-merge group of files is provided in the mailmerge subdirectory of the Barcode 2D Macros samples directory.

In-cell Barcode() formula for Excel

The function barcode(cell,code,flags) enables the contents of a cell to show a font-based barcode based on the data in another cell simply by placing the formula =Barcode(cell,code,flags) into the cell. eg =barcode2D(A2,4,0,0,0,0) produces a Datamatrix barcode in the cell using data from the cell A2.

The code for these functions is included in the macros module.

Note that, by default, formulae in Excel are normally recalculated when Excel recognises that the data for the formula changes. However, we recommend forcing a recalculation of all formulae in the spreadsheet before assuming that all barcodes have been updated. The way of forcing recalculation depends on the version of Excel, so see you Excel Help for details. In most case SHIFT+F9 recalculates the current worksheet.

Active Barcodes in Access

An Active 2D Barcode Control may be placed on an Access form or report by selecting the More Controls icon in the toolbox (which, if not visible, can be displayed by checking the Controls Toolbox member of the View – Toolbars menu), or by choosing Active-X Controls from the Insert menu and choosing Active Barcode Control from the list of controls available. In Access 2007 the Active-X Controls item appears on the Design toolbar..

A default barcode image appears on the report. Right-clicking on the barcode and selecting Properties from the pop-up menu causes the control’s Properties dialog to be displayed.

2D Barcode properties

In addition to allowing all the barcode properties to be set, the properties dialog also allows the control’s source to be selected - typically as a field in a database table.

Notes

This product is suitable for use with Word's Mail-merge when font-based barcodes are used.

In Word the PBarcode2D macros replace the selected text with a barcode Picture; the FBarcode2D macros replace the selected text with a font-based barcode.

In Excel's sheet view the PBarcode2D macros take the code(s) from one or more selected cells and position the barcode image(s) over the adjacent cell, adjusting the row height to accommodate the image. The FBarcode2D macros insert the font-based barcode text into the adjacent cell and set the selected barcode font. (Of course the macros can be edited to change the destination). The control may be placed on a spreadsheet and its data source linked to a specified cell.

In Access's datasheet view the PBarcode2D macros take the code(s) from one or more selected records' BarcodeSource field and paste each barcode image as a picture into the Barcode field. The FBarcode2D macros take data from one or more selected records BarcodeSource field and place the font-based barcode into the Barcode field. This Barcode field may act as the source for a picture or text control on a form or report. The Active-X control may be placed on a form or report and its data taken from a table or query.

The dLSoft Barcode 2D Macros for Office PBarcode2D macros creates images that are stored within the document, spreadsheet or table. For large spreadsheets or databases this can result in very large file sizes, and in such cases the FBarcode2D macros or the Active-X control are recommended.