How do I insert barcodes from a scanner into Excel cells?

[Guest]

I want to create a database of books based on the ISBN coding on the jacket.
It would be great if the process was semi-automatic using a macro to quicken
the entry procedure but allow a pause to enter title, author, etc.

Is there an easy way of capturing the barcode from a scanner and
automatically inserting those values directly into Excel cells?

 

[John Coleman]

Sounds like a difficult question to answer without knowing anything
about the scanner. If it has a USB cable (and how could it communicare
with your machine if it didn't?) then it probably comes with software
designed to handle the scanner's output. It would be surprising if
such software didn't have an option which allowed the user to
sequentially scan items while entering some data describing each item
scanned. Such software may even have an option to export to Excel. If
not, it probably at least has some sort of save as text file option,
which can then be moved to Excel (by a macro if you want, or manually
- which shouldn't be too hard). So, I would see if you could first
create a list of items (one book per item) with the scanner's software
and then transfer the list in one fell swoop to Excel.

HTH

-John Coleman

 

[Tom Ogilvy]

Most barcode scanners have a utility that reads the bar code, then transmits
the code as emulated keystrokes, terminated with a carriage return. These
work well with excel.