Codabar

• Oct 29, 2018
• 2 minutes to read

Short Description

The Codabar was developed in 1972 by Pitney Bowes, Inc. It is a discrete, self-checking symbology that may encode 16 different characters, plus an additional 4 start/stop characters. This symbology is used by U.S. blood banks, photo labs, and on FedEx air bills.

Bar Code Properties

The type of a bar code control’s Symbology property is CodabarGenerator.

The following properties are specific to the Codabar type.

• StartSymbol

  Gets or sets the first (start) symbol used to code the bar code’s structure.

• StopSymbol

  Gets or sets the last (stop) symbol used to code the bar code’s structure.

• WideNarrowRatio

  Gets or sets the density of a bar code’s bars.

Examples

The following code creates a Codabar bar code and specifies its main properties.

Note

A complete sample project is available at https://github.com/DevExpress-Examples/how-to-add-a-bar-code-to-a-report-e167.

Form1.cs

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Drawing.Printing;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using DevExpress.XtraPrinting.BarCode;
using DevExpress.XtraReports.UI;
// ...
public XRBarCode CreateCodabarBarCode(string BarCodeText) {
    // Create a bar code control.
    XRBarCode barCode = new XRBarCode();

    // Set the bar code's type to Codabar
    barCode.Symbology = new CodabarGenerator();

    // Adjust the bar code's main properties.
    barCode.Text = BarCodeText;
    barCode.Width = 300;
    barCode.Height = 100;

    // Adjust the properties specific to the bar code type.
    ((CodabarGenerator)barCode.Symbology).StartSymbol = CodabarStartStopSymbol.C;
    ((CodabarGenerator)barCode.Symbology).StopSymbol = CodabarStartStopSymbol.D;
    ((CodabarGenerator)barCode.Symbology).WideNarrowRatio = 2.5F;

    return barCode;
}

Form1.vb

Imports System
Imports System.Collections.Generic
Imports System.Drawing.Printing
Imports System.Windows.Forms
Imports DevExpress.XtraPrinting.BarCode
Imports DevExpress.XtraReports.UI
' ...
Public Function CreateCodabarBarCode(ByVal BarCodeText As String) As XRBarCode
    ' Create a bar code control.
    Dim barCode As New XRBarCode()

    ' Set the bar code's type to Codabar
    barCode.Symbology = New CodabarGenerator()

    ' Adjust the bar code's main properties.
    barCode.Text = BarCodeText
    barCode.Width = 300
    barCode.Height = 100

    ' Adjust the properties specific to the bar code type.
    CType(barCode.Symbology, CodabarGenerator).StartSymbol = CodabarStartStopSymbol.C
    CType(barCode.Symbology, CodabarGenerator).StopSymbol = CodabarStartStopSymbol.D
    CType(barCode.Symbology, CodabarGenerator).WideNarrowRatio = 2.5F

    Return barCode
End Function

To add the XRBarCode to a report band, handle the report’s XRControl.BeforePrint event.

C#

using System.Drawing.Printing;
// ...

private void XtraReport1_BeforePrint(object sender, PrintEventArgs e) {
    this.Detail.Controls.Add(CreateCodabarBarCode("012345678"));
}

VB.NET

Imports System.Drawing.Printing
' ...

Private Sub XtraReport1_BeforePrint(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As PrintEventArgs)
    Me.Detail.Controls.Add(CreateCodabarBarCode("012345678"))
End Sub