--- /dev/null
+
+
+This is barcode.info, produced by makeinfo version 4.0b from
+barcode.texinfo.
+
+ This file is the User's Manual for the barcode library (version
+0.98).
+
+
+
+
+*Node: Overview
+ Overview
+ ********
+
+ The "barcode" package is mainly a C library for creating bar-code
+output files. It also includes a command line front-end and (in a
+foreseeable future) a graphic frontend.
+
+ The package is designed as a library because we think the main use
+for barcode-generation tools is inside more featured applications. The
+library addresses bar code printing as two distinct problems: creation
+of bar information and actual conversion to an output format. To this
+aim we use an intermediate representation for bar codes, which is
+currently documented in the `ps.c' source file (not in this document).
+
+ Note that the library and the accompanying material is released
+according to the GPL license, not the LGPL one. A copy of the GPL is
+included in the distribution tarball.
+
+
+
+
+*Node: The Barcode Object
+ The Underlying Data Structure
+ *****************************
+
+ Every barcode-related function acts on a data structure defined in
+the `barcode.h' header, which must be included by any C source file
+that uses the library. The header is installed by make install.
+
+ The definition of the data structure is included here for reference:
+
+ struct Barcode_Item {
+ int flags; /* type of encoding and other flags */
+ char *ascii; /* malloced */
+ char *partial; /* malloced too */
+ char *textinfo; /* information about text placement */
+ char *encoding; /* code name, filled by encoding engine */
+ int width, height; /* output units */
+ int xoff, yoff; /* output units */
+ int margin; /* output units */
+ double scalef; /* requested scaling for barcode */
+ int error; /* an errno-like value, in case of failure */
+ };
+
+ The exact meaning of each field and the various flags implemented are
+described in the following sections.
+
+ Even though you won't usually need to act on the contents of this
+structure, some of the functions in the library receive arguments that
+are directly related to one or more of these fields.
+
+
+
+
+*Node: The Field List
+ The Fields
+ ==========
+
+`int flags;'
+ The flags are, as you may suspect, meant to specify the exact
+ behaviour of the library. They are often passed as an argument to
+ barcode functions and are discussed in the next section.
+
+`char *ascii;'
+`char *partial;'
+`char *textinfo;'
+`char *encoding;'
+ These fields are internally managed by the library, and you are
+ not expected to touch them if you use the provided API. All of
+ them are allocated with malloc.
+
+`int width;'
+`int height;'
+ They specify the width and height of the active barcode region
+ (i.e., excluding the white margin), in the units used to create
+ output data (for postscript they are points, 1/72th of an inch,
+ 0.352 mm). The fields can be either assigned to in the structure
+ or via Barcode_Position(), at your choice. If either value or
+ both are left to their default value of zero, the output engine
+ will assign default values according to the specified scaling
+ factor. If the specified width is bigger than needed (according to
+ the scaling factor), the output barcode will be centered in its
+ requested region. If either the width of the height are too small
+ for the specified scale factor, the output bar code will expand
+ symmetrically around the requested region.
+
+`int xoff;'
+`int yoff;'
+ The fields specify offset from the coordinate origin of the output
+ engine (for postscript, position 0,0 is the lower left corner of
+ the page). The fields can be either assigned to in the structure
+ or via Barcode_Position(), at your choice. The offset specifies
+ where the white margin begins, not where the first bar will be
+ printed. To print real ink to the specified position you should
+ set margin to 0.
+
+`int margin;'
+ The white margin that will be left around the printed area of the
+ bar code. The same margin is applied to all sides of the printed
+ area. The default value for the margin is defined in `barcode.h'
+ as BARCODE_DEFAULT_MARGIN (10).
+
+`double scalef;'
+ The enlarge or shrink value for the bar code over its default
+ dimension. The width and scalef fields interact deeply in the
+ creation of the output, and a complete description of the issues
+ appears later in this section.
+
+`int error;'
+ The field is used when a barcode function fails to host an
+ errno-like integer value.
+
+Use of the width and scalef fields.
+-----------------------------------
+
+ A width unit is the width of the thinnest bar and/or space in the
+chosen code; it defaults to 1 point if the output is postscript or
+encapsulated postscript.
+
+ Either or both the code width and the scale factor can be left
+unspecified (i.e., zero). The library deals with defaults in the
+following way:
+
+Both unspecified
+ If both the width and the scale factor are unspecified, the scale
+ factor will default to 1.0 and the width is calculated according
+ to the actual width of the bar code being printed.
+
+Width unspecified
+ If the width is not specified, it is calculated according to the
+ values of scalef.
+
+Scale factor unspecified
+ If the scale factor is not specified, it will be chosen so that
+ the generated bar code exactly fits the specified width.
+
+Both specified
+ The code will be printed inside the specified region according to
+ the specified scale factor. It will be aligned to the left. If,
+ however, the chosen width is too small for the specific bar code
+ and scaling factor, then the code will extend symmetrically to the
+ left and to the right of the chosen region.
+
+
+
+
+*Node: The Intermediate Representation
+ The Intermediate Representation
+ ===============================
+
+ The encoding functions print their output into the partial and
+texinfo fields of the barcode data structure. Those fields, together
+with position information, are then used to generate actual output.
+This is an informal description of the intermediate format.
+
+ The first char in partial tells how much extra space to add to the
+left of the bars. For EAN-13, it is used to leave space to print the
+first digit, other codes may have '0' for no-extra-space-needed.
+
+ The next characters are alternating bars and spaces, as multiples of
+the base dimension which is 1 unless the code is rescaled. Rescaling is
+calculated as the ratio from the requested width and the calculated
+width. Digits represent bar/space dimensions. Lower-case letters
+represent those bars that should extend lower than the others: 'a' is
+equivalent to '1', 'b' is '2' and so on up to 'i' which is equivalent to
+'9'. Other letters will be used for encoding-specific meanings, as soon
+as I implement them.
+
+ The textinfo string is made up of fields %lf:%lf:%c separated by
+blank space. The first integer is the x position of the character, the
+second is the font size (before rescaling) and the char item is the
+character to be printed.
+
+ Both the partial and textinfo strings may include "-" or "+" as
+special characters (in textinfo the char should be a stand-alone word).
+They state where the text should be printed: below the bars ("-",
+default) or above the bars. This is used, for example, to print the
+add-5 and add-2 codes to the right of UPC or EAN codes (the add-5
+extension is mostly used in ISBN codes).
+
+
+
+
+*Node: Supported Flags
+ The Flags
+ *********
+
+ The following flags are supported by version 0.98 of the library:
+
+`BARCODE_ENCODING_MASK'
+ The mask is used to extract the encoding-type identifier from the
+ flags field.
+
+`BARCODE_EAN'
+`BARCODE_UPC'
+`BARCODE_ISBN'
+`BARCODE_128B'
+`BARCODE_128C'
+`BARCODE_128'
+`BARCODE_128RAW'
+`BARCODE_39'
+`BARCODE_I25'
+`BARCODE_CBR'
+`BARCODE_MSI'
+`BARCODE_PLS'
+`BARCODE_93'
+ The currently supported encoding types: EAN (13 digits, 8 digits,
+ 13 + 2 add-on and 13 + 5 add-on), UPC (UPC-A, UPC-E, UPC-A with 2
+ or 5 digit add-on), ISBN (with or without the 5-digit add-on),
+ CODE128-B (the whole set of printable ASCII characters), CODE128-C
+ (two digits encoded by each barcode symbol), CODE128 (all ASCII
+ values), a "raw-input" pseudo-code that generates CODE128 output,
+ CODE39 (alphanumeric), "interleaved 2 of 5" (numeric), Codabar
+ (numeric plus a few symbols), MSI (numeric) and Plessey (hex
+ digits). *Note Supported Encodings::.
+
+`BARCODE_ANY'
+ This special encoding type (represented by a value of zero, so it
+ will be the default) tells the encoding procedure to look for the
+ first encoding type that can deal with a textual string.
+ Therefore, a 11-digit code will be printed as UPC (as well as
+ 6-digit, 11+2 and 11+5), a 12-digit (or 7-digit, or 12+2 or 12+5)
+ as EAN13, an ISBN code (with or without hyphens, with or without
+ add-5) will be encoded in its EAN13 representation, an even number
+ of digits is encoded using CODE128C and a generic string is
+ encoded using CODE128B. Since code-39 offers a much larger
+ representation for the same text string, code128-b is preferred
+ over code39 for alphanumeric strings.
+
+`BARCODE_NO_ASCII'
+ Instructs the engine not to print the ascii string on output. By
+ default the bar code is accompanied with an ascii version of the
+ text it encodes.
+
+`BARCODE_NO_CHECKSUM'
+ Instructs the engine not to add the checksum character to the
+ output. Not all the encoding types can drop the checksum; those
+ where the checksum is mandatory (like EAN and UPC) just ignore the
+ flag.
+
+`BARCODE_OUTPUT_MASK'
+ The mask is used to extract the output-type identifier from the
+ flags field.
+
+`BARCODE_OUT_PS'
+`BARCODE_OUT_EPS'
+`BARCODE_OUT_PCL'
+`BARCODE_OUT_PCL_III'
+ The currently supported encoding types: full-page postscript and
+ encapsulated postscript; PCL (print command language, for HP
+ printers) and PCL-III (same as PCL, but uses a font not available
+ on older printers).
+
+`BARCODE_OUT_NOHEADERS'
+ The flag instructs the printing engine not to print the header and
+ footer part of the file. This makes sense for the postscript
+ engine but might not make sense for other engines; such other
+ engines will silently ignore the flag just like the PCL back-end
+ does.
+
+
+
+
+*Node: The API
+ Functions Exported by the Library
+ *********************************
+
+ The functions included in the barcode library are declared in the
+header file barcode.h. They perform the following tasks:
+
+`struct Barcode_Item *Barcode_Create(char *text);'
+ The function creates a new barcode object to deal with a specified
+ text string. It returns NULL in case of failure and a pointer to
+ a barcode data structure in case of success.
+
+`int Barcode_Delete(struct Barcode_Item *bc);'
+ Destroy a barcode object. Always returns 0 (success)
+
+`int Barcode_Encode(struct Barcode_Item *bc, int flags);'
+ Encode the text included in the bc object. Valid flags are the
+ encoding type (other flags are ignored) and BARCODE_NO_CHECKSUM
+ (other flags are silently ignored); if the flag argument is zero,
+ bc->flags will apply. The function returns 0 on success and -1 in
+ case of error. After successful termination the data structure
+ will host the description of the bar code and its textual
+ representation, after a failure the error field will include the
+ reason of the failure.
+
+`int Barcode_Print(struct Barcode_Item *bc, FILE *f, int flags);'
+ Print the bar code described by bc to the specified file. Valid
+ flags are the output type, BARCODE_NO_ASCII and
+ BARCODE_OUT_NOHEADERS, other flags are ignored. If any of these
+ flags is zero, it will be inherited from bc->flags which therefore
+ takes precedence. The function returns 0 on success and -1 in case
+ of error (with bc->error set accordingly). In case of success, the
+ bar code is printed to the specified file, which won't be closed
+ after use.
+
+`int Barcode_Position(struct Barcode_Item *bc, int wid, int hei, int xoff, int yoff, double scalef);'
+ The function is a shortcut to assign values to the data structure.
+
+`int Barcode_Encode_and_Print(char *text, FILE *f, int wid, int hei, int xoff, int yoff, int flags);'
+ The function deals with the whole life of the barcode object by
+ calling the other functions; it uses all the specified flags.
+
+`int Barcode_Version(char *versionname);'
+ Returns the current version as an integer number of the form major
+ * 10000 + minor * 100 + release. Therefore, version 1.03.5 will be
+ returned as 10305 and version 0.53 as 5300. If the argument is
+ non-null, it will be used to return the version number as a
+ string. Note that the same information is available from two
+ preprocessor macros: BARCODE_VERSION (the string) and
+ BARCODE_VERSION_INT (the integer number).
+
+
+
+
+*Node: The barcode Executable
+ The barcode frontend program
+ ****************************
+
+ The barcode program is a front-end to access some features of the
+library from the command line. It is able to read user supplied
+strings from the command line or a data file (standard input by default)
+and encode all of them.
+
+
+
+
+*Node: The Command Line
+ The Command Line
+ ================
+
+ barcode accepts the following options:
+
+`--help or -h'
+ Print a usage summary and exit.
+
+`-i filename'
+ Identify a file where strings to be encoded are read from. If
+ missing (and if -b is not used) it defaults to standard input.
+ Each data line of the input file will be used to create one
+ barcode output.
+
+`-o filename'
+ Output file. It defaults to standard output.
+
+`-b string'
+ Specify a single "barcode" string to be encoded. The option can
+ be used multiple times in order to encode multiple strings (this
+ will result in multi-page postscript output or a table of barcodes
+ if -t is specified). The strings must match the encoding chosen;
+ if it doesn't match the program will print a warning to stderr and
+ generate "blank" output (although not zero-length). Please note
+ that a string including spaces or other special characters must be
+ properly quoted.
+
+`-e encoding'
+ encoding is the name of the chosen encoding format being used. It
+ defaults to the value of the environment variable BARCODE_ENCODING
+ or to auto detection if the environment is also unset.
+
+`-g geometry'
+ The geometry argument is of the form "[<width> x <height>] [+
+ <xmargin> + <ymargin>]" (with no intervening spaces). Unspecified
+ margin values will result in no margin; unspecified size results
+ in default size. The specified values represent print points by
+ default, and can be inches, millimeters or other units according
+ to the -u option or the BARCODE_UNIT environment variable. The
+ argument is used to place the printout code on the page. Note that
+ an additional white margin of 10 points is added to the printout.
+ If the option is unspecified, BARCODE_GEOMETRY is looked up in the
+ environment, if missing a default size and no margin (but the
+ default 10 points) are used.
+
+`-t table-geometry'
+ Used to print several barcodes to a single page, this option is
+ meant to be used to print stickers. The argument is of the form
+ "<columns> x <lines> [+ <leftmargin> + <bottommargin> [-
+ <rightmargin> [- <topmargin>]]]" (with no intervening spaces); if
+ missing, the top and right margin will default to be the same as
+ the bottom and left margin. The margins are specified in print
+ points or in the chosen unit (see -u below). If the option is not
+ specified, BARCODE_TABLE is looked up in the environment,
+ otherwise no table is printed and each barcode will get its own
+ page. The size (but not the position) of a barcode item within a
+ table can also be selected using -g (see "geometry" above),
+ without struggling with external and internal margins. I still
+ think management of geometries in a table is suboptimal, but I
+ can't make it better without introducing incompatibilities.
+
+`-m margin(s)'
+ Specifies an internal margin for each sticker in the table. The
+ argument is of the form "<xmargin>,<ymargin>" and the margin is
+ applied symmetrically to the sticker. If unspecified, the
+ environment variable BARCODE_MARGIN is used or a default internal
+ margin of 10 points is used.
+
+`-n'
+ "Numeric" output: don't print the ASCII form of the code, only the
+ bars.
+
+`-c'
+ No checksum character (for encodings that allow it, like code 39,
+ other codes, like UPC or EAN, ignore this option).
+
+`-E'
+ Encapsulated postscript (default is normal postscript). When the
+ output is generated as EPS only one barcode is encoded.
+
+`-P'
+ PCL output. Please note that the Y direction goes from top to
+ bottom for PCL, and the origin for an image is the top-left corner
+ instead of the bottom-left
+
+`-p pagesize'
+ Specify a non-default page size. The page size can be specified in
+ millimeters, inches or plain numbers (for example: "210x297mm",
+ "8.5x11in", "595x842"). A page specification as numbers will be
+ interpreted according to the current unit specification (see -u
+ below). If libpaper is available, you can also specify the page
+ size with its name, like "A3" or "letter" (libpaper is a standard
+ component of Debian GNU/Linux, but may be missing elsewhere). The
+ default page size is your system-wide default if libpaper is
+ there, A4 otherwise.
+
+`-u unit'
+ Choose the unit used in size specifications. Accepted values are
+ "mm", "cm", "in" and "pt". By default, the program will check
+ BARCODE_UNIT in the environment, and assume points otherwise (this
+ behaviour is compatible with 0.92 and previous versions. If -u
+ appears more than once, each instance will modified the behaviour
+ for the arguments at its right, as the command line is processes
+ left to right. The program internally works with points, and any
+ size is approximated to the nearest multiple of one point. The -u
+ option affect -g (geometry), -t (table) and -p (page size).
+
+
+
+
+*Node: Supported Encodings
+ Supported Encodings
+ *******************
+
+ The program encodes text strings passed either on the command line
+(with -b) or retrieved from standard input. The text representation is
+interpreted according to the following rules. When auto-detection of
+the encoding is enabled (i.e, no explicit encoding type is specified),
+the encoding types are scanned to find one that can digest the text
+string. The following list of supported types is sorted in the same
+order the library uses when auto-detecting a suitable encoding for a
+string.
+
+EAN
+ The EAN frontend is similar to UPC; it accepts strings of digits,
+ 12 or 7 characters long. Strings of 13 or 8 characters are
+ accepted if the provided checksum digit is correct. I expect most
+ users to feed input without a checksum, though. The add-2 and
+ add-5 extension are accepted for both the EAN-13 and the EAN-8
+ encodings. The following are example of valid input strings:
+ "123456789012" (EAN-13), "1234567890128" (EAN-13 wih checksum),
+ "1234567" (EAN-8), "12345670 12345" (EAN-8 with checksum and
+ add-5), "123456789012 12" (EAN-13 with add-2), "123456789012
+ 12345" (EAN-13 with add-5).
+
+UPC
+ The UPC frontend accepts only strings made up of digits (and, if a
+ supplemental encoding is used, a blank to separate it). It
+ accepts strings of 11 or 12 digits (UPC-A) and 6 or 7 or 8 digits
+ (UPC-E).
+
+ The 12th digit of UPC-A is the checksum and is added by the
+ library if not specified in the input; if it is specified, it must
+ be the right checksum or the code is rejected as invalid. For
+ UPC-E, 6 digit are considered to be the middle part of the code, a
+ leading 0 is assumed and the checksum is added; 7 digits are
+ either considered the initial part (leading digit 0 or 1, checksum
+ missing) or the final part (checksum specified, leading 0
+ assumed); 8 digits are considered to be the complete code, with
+ leading 0 or 1 and checksum. For both UPC-A and UPC-E, a trailing
+ string of 2 digits or 5 digits is accepted as well. Therefore, the
+ following are examples of valid strings that can be encoded as UPC:
+ "01234567890" (UPC-A) "012345678905" (UPC-A with checksum),
+ "012345" (UPC-E), "01234567890 12" (UPC-A, add-2) and "01234567890
+ 12345" (UPC-A, add-5), "0123456 12" (UPC-E, add-2). Please note
+ that when setting BARCODE_ANY to auto-detect the encoding to be
+ used, 12-digit strings and 7-digit strings will always be
+ identified as EAN. This because I expect most user to provide
+ input without a checksum. If you need to specify UPC-with-checksum
+ as input you must explicitly set BARCODE_UPC as a flag or use -e
+ upc on the command line.
+
+ISBN
+ ISBN numbers are encoded as EAN-13 symbols, with an optional add-5
+ trailer. The ISBN frontend of the library accepts real ISBN
+ numbers and deals with any hyphen and, if present, the ISBN
+ checksum character before encoding data. Valid representations for
+ ISBN strings are for example: "1-56592-292-1", "3-89721-122-X" and
+ "3-89721-122-X 06900".
+
+CODE 128-B
+ This encoding can represent all of the printing ASCII characters,
+ from the space (32) to DEL (127). The checksum digit is mandatory
+ in this encoding.
+
+CODE 128-C
+ The "C" variation of Code-128 uses Code-128 symbols to represent
+ two digits at a time (Code-128 is made up of 104 symbols whose
+ interpretation is controlled by the start symbol being used). Code
+ 128-C is thus the most compact way to represent any even number of
+ digits. The encoder refuses to deal with an odd number of digits
+ because the caller is expected to provide proper padding to an
+ even number of digits. (Since Code-128 includes control symbols to
+ switch charset, it is theoretically possible to represent the odd
+ digit as a Code 128-A or 128-B symbol, but this tool doesn't
+ currently implement this option).
+
+CODE 128 RAW
+ Code-128 output represented symbol-by-symbol in the input string.
+ To override part of the problems outlined below in specifying
+ code128 symbols, this pseudo-encoding allows the used to specify a
+ list of code128 symbols separated by spaces. Each symbol is
+ represented by a number in the range 0-105. The list should
+ include the leading character.The checksum and the stop character
+ are automatically added by the library. Most likely this
+ pseudo-encoding will be used with BARCODE_NO_ASCII and some
+ external program to supply the printed text.
+
+CODE 39
+ The code-39 standard can encode uppercase letters, digits, the
+ blank space, plus, minus, dot, star, dollar, slash, percent. Any
+ string that is only composed of such characters is accepted by the
+ code-39 encoder. To avoid loosing information, the encoder refuses
+ to encode mixed-case strings (a lowercase string is nonetheless
+ accepted as a shortcut, but is encoded as uppercase).
+
+INTERLEAVED 2 OF 5
+ This encoding can only represent an even number of digits (odd
+ digits are represented by bars, and even digits by the
+ interleaving spaces). The name stresses the fact that two of the
+ five items (bars or spaces) allocated to each symbol are wide,
+ while the rest are narrow. The checksum digit is optional (can be
+ disabled via BARCODE_NO_CHECKSUM). Since the number of digits,
+ including the checksum, must be even, a leading zero is inserted
+ in the string being encoded if needed (this is specifically stated
+ in the specs I have access to).
+
+CODE 128
+ Automatic selection between alphabet A, B and C of the Code-128
+ standard. This encoding can represent all ASCII symbols, from 0
+ (NUL) to 127 (DEL), as well as four special symbols, named F1, F2,
+ F3, F4. The set of symbols available in this encoding is not
+ easily represented as input to the barcode library, so the
+ following convention is used. In the input string, which is a
+ C-language null-terminated string, the NUL char is represented by
+ the value 128 (0x80, 0200) and the F1-F4 characters are
+ represented by the values 193-196 (0xc1-0xc4, 0301-0304). The
+ values have been chosen to ease their representation as escape
+ sequences.
+
+ Since the shell doesn't seem to interpret escape sequences on the
+ command line, the "-b" option cannot be easily used to designate
+ the strings to be encoded. As a workaround you can resort to the
+ command echo, either within back-ticks or used separately to
+ create a file that is then fed to the standard-input of barcode -
+ assuming your echo command processes escape sequences. The
+ newline character is especially though to encode (but not
+ impossible unless you use a csh variant.
+
+ These problems only apply to the command-line tool; the use of
+ library functions doesn't give any problem. In needed, you can use
+ the "code 128 raw" pseudo-encoding to represent code128 symbols by
+ their numerical value. This encoding is used late in the
+ auto-selection mechanism because (almost) any input string can be
+ represented using code128.
+
+CODABAR
+ Codabar can encode the ten digits and a few special symbols
+ (minus, plus, dollar, colon, bar, dot). The characters "A", "B",
+ "C" and "D" are used to represent four different start/stop
+ characters. The input string to the barcode library can include
+ the start and stop characters or not include them (in which case
+ "A" is used as start and "B" as stop). Start and stop characters
+ in the input string can be either all lowercase or all uppercase
+ and are always printed as uppercase.
+
+PLESSEY
+ Plessey barcodes can encode all the hexadecimal digits. Alphabetic
+ digits in the input string must either be all lowercase or all
+ uppercase. The output text is always uppercase.
+
+MSI
+ MSI can only encode the decimal digits. While the standard
+ specifies either one or two check digits, the current
+ implementation in this library only generates one check digit.
+
+CODE 93
+ The code-93 standard can natively encode 48 different characters,
+ including uppercase letters, digits, the blank space, plus, minus,
+ dot, star, dollar, slash, percent, as well as five special
+ characters: a start/stop delimiter and four "shift characters"
+ used for extended encoding. Using this "extended encoding"
+ method, any standard 7-bit ASCII character can be encoded, but it
+ takes up two symbol lengths in barcode if the character is not
+ natively supported (one of the 48). The encoder here fully
+ implements the code 93 encoding standard. Any characters natively
+ supported (A-Z, 0-9, ".+-/$&%") will be encoded as such - for any
+ other characters (such as lower case letters, brackets,
+ parentheses, etc.), the encoder will revert to extended encoding.
+ As a note, the option to exclude the checksum will eliminate the
+ two modulo-47 checksums (called C and K) from the barcode, but this
+ probably will make it unreadable by 99% of all scanning systems.
+ These checksums are specified to be used at the firmware level,
+ and their absence will be interpreted as an invalid barcode.
+
+
+
+
+*Node: PCL Output
+ PCL Output
+ **********
+
+ While the default output is Postscript (possibly EPS), and Postscript
+can be post-processed to almost anything, it is sometimes desirable to
+create output directly usable by the specific printer at hand. PCL is
+currently supported as an output format for this reason. Please note
+that the Y coordinate for PCL goes from top to bottom, while for
+Postscript it goes from bottom to top. Consistently, while in
+Postscript you specify the bottom-left corner as origin, for PCL you
+specify the top-left corner.
+
+ Barcode output for PCL Printers (HP LaserJet and compatibles), was
+developed using PCL5 Reference manuals from HP. that really refers to
+these printers:
+ * LaserJet III, III P, III D, III Si,
+
+ * LaserJet 4 family
+
+ * LaserJet 5 family
+
+ * LaserJet 6 family
+
+ * Color LaserJet
+
+ * DeskJet 1200 and 1600.
+
+
+ However, barcode printing uses a very small subset of PCL, probably
+also LaserJet II should print it without problem, but the resulting
+text may be horrible.
+
+ The only real difference from one printer to another really depends
+on which font are available in the printer, used in printing the label
+associated to the bars (if requested).
+
+ Earlier LaserJet supports only bitmaps fonts, so these are not
+"scalable". (Ljet II ?), Also these fonts, when available, have a
+specified direction, and not all of them are available in both Portrait
+and Landscape mode.
+
+ From LaserJet 4 series, (except 4L/5L that are entry-level printers),
+Arial scalable font should be available, so it's the "default font"
+used by this program.
+
+ LaserJet III series printers (and 4L, 5L), don't feature "Arial" as a
+resident font, so you should use BARCODE_OUT_PCL_III instead of
+BARCODE_OUT_PCL., and font the font used will be "Univers" instead of
+"Arial".
+
+ Results on compatible printers, may depend on consistency of PCL5
+compatibility, in doubt, try BARCODE_OUT_PCL_III
+
+ PJL commands are not used here, as it's not very compatible.
+
+ Tested Printers:
+ * Hp LaserJet 4050
+
+ * Hp LaserJet 2100
+
+ * Epson N-1200 emul PCL
+
+ * Toshiba DP2570 (copier) + PCL option
+
+ * Epson EPL-7100 emul. HP LaserJet II: bars print fine but text is
+ bad.
+
+
+
+
+*Node: Bugs and Pending Issues
+ Bugs and Pending Issues.
+ ************************
+
+ The current management of borders/margins is far from optimal. The
+"default" margin applied by the library interferes with the external
+representation, but I feel it is mandatory to avoid creating barcode
+output with no surrounding white space (the problem is especially
+relevant for EPS output).
+
+ EAN-128 is not (yet) supported. I plan to implement it pretty soon
+and then bless the package as version 1.0.
+
+
+
+
+
+Tag Table:Node: Top\7f154
+ Node: Overview\7f526
+ Node: The Barcode Object\7f1404
+Node: The Field List\7f2821
+Node: The Intermediate Representation\7f6586
+Node: Supported Flags\7f8359
+Node: The API\7f11343
+Node: The barcode Executable\7f14029
+Node: The Command Line\7f14458
+Node: Supported Encodings\7f19557
+Node: PCL Output\7f28997
+Node: Bugs and Pending Issues\7f31316
+
+
+
+End Tag Table
\ No newline at end of file
projects / glabels / blobdiff