We use Visual Manufacturing which produces some reports with embedded
barcodes. Since upgrading some clients to new Xp machines, the barcodes still
print, but are no longer readable by the scanners we use. The reports and
printers are exactly the same as before, indeed we are Ok if we print from 98
or 2000 machines,. The problem being we are upgrading all clients to XP and
need a solution.

This is my theory. XP is probably producing a more acurate calculation when
calculating the bar widths for the bars in the barcodes. This may be
resulting in a different read. We had a customer that could print a barcode
using one driver and the barcode would read but when using another driver it
did not read. In this case the one that read was a driver for a 200 dpi
printer and the one that did not read was a driver for a 203dpi printer.
After examining the barcodes, the one printed at 203dpi had some narrow bars
that were faint an therefore did not read well. By changing the resolution
of the 203 dpi to 200 dpi, the problem was fixed. However you do lose a
couple of dots across the width of the page due to the printer resolution
was still 203dpi. This only seems to be an issue with lower resolution
devices.

"MikeH" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:B79C6E6B-F64A-45BF-908B-(E-Mail Removed)...
> We use Visual Manufacturing which produces some reports with embedded
> barcodes. Since upgrading some clients to new Xp machines, the barcodes
still
> print, but are no longer readable by the scanners we use. The reports and
> printers are exactly the same as before, indeed we are Ok if we print from
98
> or 2000 machines,. The problem being we are upgrading all clients to XP
and
> need a solution.

Embarrasingly simple solution. The barcode was set to print in BOLD. Switch
this off it scans OK. Don't know why XP makes things bolder than 2000, etc. ?


"mao" wrote:

> This is my theory. XP is probably producing a more acurate calculation when
> calculating the bar widths for the bars in the barcodes. This may be
> resulting in a different read. We had a customer that could print a barcode
> using one driver and the barcode would read but when using another driver it
> did not read. In this case the one that read was a driver for a 200 dpi
> printer and the one that did not read was a driver for a 203dpi printer.
> After examining the barcodes, the one printed at 203dpi had some narrow bars
> that were faint an therefore did not read well. By changing the resolution
> of the 203 dpi to 200 dpi, the problem was fixed. However you do lose a
> couple of dots across the width of the page due to the printer resolution
> was still 203dpi. This only seems to be an issue with lower resolution
> devices.
>
> "MikeH" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:B79C6E6B-F64A-45BF-908B-(E-Mail Removed)...
> > We use Visual Manufacturing which produces some reports with embedded
> > barcodes. Since upgrading some clients to new Xp machines, the barcodes
> still
> > print, but are no longer readable by the scanners we use. The reports and
> > printers are exactly the same as before, indeed we are Ok if we print from
> 98
> > or 2000 machines,. The problem being we are upgrading all clients to XP
> and
> > need a solution.
>
>
>