Frequently Asked Questions

How do I print sheets of labels?

There are two easy ways to print sheets of labels with our bar code fonts.

  • Run the utility program that came with your bar code font set. Make your bar code and click on the Label button. Then select the size of the label you want to print. Click on the Print button to open a label template file in your word processor. Paste your bar code there and add any text or graphics you might want.
  • You can use Word's address label templates to print sheets of the same bar code. This is the fastest and easiest way to print an entire sheet of identical  bar code labels with no other text. Click for complete step by step instructions in pdf format.

Bar codes won't scan?

There are typically only four reasons why bar codes printed with our fonts won't scan:

  • You did not include the Start or the Stop code.
  • You did not calculate and add the checksum character if a checksum was required for that bar code.
  • You are attempting to make a bar code with characters not in that bar code symbology.
  • You are attempting to print a bar code beyond the resolution of your printer. These bar code fonts are optimized for medium to high resolution laser and inkjet printers. Maximum print density for a given printer resolution is specified in the program documentation.

Clip board copy doesn't work?

When you use one of our utility programs to copy a bar code to the clipboard, you are only copying the bar code data! When you paste this data into your Windows application all you will see is the bar code data- there will not be a bar code there. To make a bar code appear you need to highlight the bar code data in your program and then select one of our bar code fonts for that data.


How do I get a bar code for my product?

Virtually all products sold in North America use the UPC-A bar code (or UPC-E, which is just a smaller version of UPC-A). You can not make up a UPC-A bar code number, you must pay the Uniform Code Council a fee and they assign you your UPC code. (That's why no two products will ever have the same UPC code.) A UPC code assignment costs over $500. You can find out more by contacting the Uniform Code Council.

Once you have a UPC code, you can either pay someone to print the bar code for you, or you can buy software to print it yourself. Our software makes it possible for you to print your own bar codes.


I see square boxes in my bar code!

When you type in a character that is not in a font, Windows displays an empty square box as an error indication. Each bar code font has a limited character set. Square boxes indicate you are entering data that is not in that bar code set. These bar codes will not scan.


How do I make really tall bar codes?

To make taller bar codes increase the point size for your data.

If you want to make taller bar codes without increasing the width of the bar code, select the next larger typeface name (moving from, say, "FontName b" to "FontName c").

If you still can't get the height you want, you will need to print the bar code line twice. Print a line, move down on the page, and print the same line again. The bar codes will join together to make a taller bar code.


Human readable bar code 128 shows the checksum!

When you select the human readable bar code 128 fonts, everything in the bar code is displayed, including the checksum.

If you don't want to display the checksum character, switch to the matching standard bar code 128 typeface right before you print the checksum data.