Re: Need Bar Code Font for Solaris2, CDE, Oracle Reports, HP5-Si/MX

Charles Roten wrote:

I ran into a similar problem a while back, and found a solution.

I found a shareware program for MS-DOS that allowed me to create a font file that loads a new font into PCL5 compatible printers that looks and scans just fine.

My resulting font file was for a 3 of 9 barcode font, and I added some escape codes to the binary that load it as a resident font. It is not permenant, though. These resident fonts get deleted when the printer is power cycled.

I was able to use it from Oracle Reports by using the necessary escape codes in the report to enable and disable the font. When the font is enabled, any characters sent to the printer are rendered as barcodes.

Now, this font has nothing to do with display fonts, I didn't have that requirement.

>Has to be a Code 128 bar code font.
 

> It _must_ be:
>
> 1) printable in multi-font documents prepared with Oracle Reports,
> to an HP 5-Si/MX laser printer.
>
> It _probably_ _should_ be:
>
> 2) viewable in a preview of the aforesaid document in a
> Sun/Solaris CDE or OpenWindows (yeech!) environment, using the
> Oracle Reports interface. Or, at least, thus spake the Oracle
> Support techies.
>
> 3) permanently resident on the HP 5-Si/MX printer. Again, that is
> the word from the Delphic Oracle.
>
> 4) And in that case, the printer-resident font must be integrated
> with the screen-viewable font .. as these two will be driven
> from differing files in differing places. The key file to
> modify seems to be "uifont.ali", buried somewhere inside the
> Oracle Reports administrative hierarchy.
>
> I have already determined the following:
>
> 1) GNU enscript 1.5 will print a simple test message in barcode to a
> Postscript printer, given *.pfa and *.afm files.
>
> 2) Given a *.pfb and an *.afm file, I can get Openwindows to use a
> barcode font as a _screen_ _font_. And, believe me, xterm looks
> __extremely__ wierd when displayed in Code 128 Barcode font!
>
> 3) The support offered by vendors, and, for that matter, Oracle
> Corporation, for user-installed fonts in a Sun/Solaris/Oracle
> environment, makes the hardest of vacuums look like chicken soup.
>
> Please _do_ _not_ tell me to go to the font vendors for tech support.
> Mention the dreaded word "Solaris" to these folks, and eyeballs roll
> up in their sockets on the other end of the phone. The next thing I
> hear is the sodden "Thump" of the unconscious body hitting the floor.
> Pretty spooky over a phone line, let me tell you.

I couldn't find support for AIX, either.

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| Thomas L. Griffing  | |~~\  /~~\ ~|~ | Dallas Softworks, Inc.   |
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