• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 21

Description:
The implementation notes for SP 3723 indicate that all instances of the CarolinaBar-B39-2.5-22x158x720 font in the form_eng directory should be replaced with the new IE9 compatible barcode font CarolinaBar-B39-25G0. This change was implemented and we are able to print machine readable barcode fonts as desired. However, our staff finds the new CarolinaBar-B39-25G0 font difficult to see and therefore, to read.

We contacted support to determine if it would be possible to change the size of the CarolinaBar-B39 barcode font and it was recommended that we replace all instances of CarolinaBar-B39-25G0 in the form_eng directory with CarolinaBar-B39-25H0. This worked effectively enough, however, because vision is subjective, they quickly found that it was necessary to increase the CarolinaBar-B39 font scale further - changing its size from 12 to 18 so that all staff could adequately read it.

The change in scale worked. However, now barcodes are no longer printing on Pick-Up Notice and Hold Request Slip forms. It seems likely that this is because the increased barcodes are too large to be formatted correctly within the constraints of each form’s XSL structure.

Is there is a way to increase the constraints or layout of an XSL form to display and print larger Barcode fonts?

Resolution:
We recommend that the text used for the barcode be displayed elsewhere on the form but in a readable-size font -- for example, a larger text version could be printed under the barcode. This allows the barcode to remain a reasonable, scanner-appropriate size, while sizing the text independently.

When a barcode is output as “bold” by the xsl, the text below the barcode does not appear, so printing the larger-size text independently below the barcode would not be redundant. See the attached image for examples of how a barcode font displays when its weight is set to bold, italic, or bold-italic.

In order to change the font weight and the way the barcode displays, changes would be required in funcs-free.xsl.
In these templates:
* display-always-barcode (a few lines below this line: <xsl:template name="display-always-barcode">)
* display-not-empty-barcode (a few lines below this line: <xsl:template name="display-not-empty-barcode">)
change this line:
<td STYLE="font-family=CarolinaBar-B39-2.5-22x158x720;">*<xsl:value-of select="$value"/>*</td>
to
<td STYLE="font-family=CarolinaBar-B39-2.5-22x158x720;font-weight:bold;">*<xsl:value-of select="$value"/>*</td>

• Article last edited: 10/8/2013