Hi,
Anyone using ?
Starting next January, I have to generate a qr-code for each invoice and include it in the printed document (or PDF).
I guess I'll have to search for an external program/driver to receive my data, produce the code and return to me an image or something.
It doesn't look complicated but, we all know, how simple things become complicated in the details so, I will appreciate to know about other's experience and recomendations.

Thanks in advance

we use 'zint' https://zint.github.io/

Thank you very much Owen, on a first quick read, it seems that you gave me a solution.
Much appreciated the searching time saving.

we also use it for 2d barcodes for our mail insertion equipment.

Hi Owen,
Again, thank you very much for this suggestion that fullfill my needs and, with a very quick and easy implementation.
How are you using it, via API or Command line?
I'm using the command line option to generate an PNG image which I embedd in my output file.
From what I read in the Zint documentation, this is the way to do it, Zint will not add code to my output.
I've done several tests and all the produced QR-Codes were well read in my cellphone so, I believe I'm on the right track but would appreciate your validation about the best process.

Thanks in advance for your comments

Basically the same way, except our output print files are in pcl so after we create the png
zint -o me.png -b 71 --square --scale=.50 -d 'testit'
we use 'convert' from imagemagic

Version: ImageMagick 6.7.2-7 2015-02-27 Q16 http://www.imagemagick.org
Copyright: Copyright (C) 1999-2011 ImageMagick Studio LLC
Features: OpenMP

to create the pcl stream and embed that in our files

convert me.png me.pcl

and then finally sed to remove any unwanted codes in the me.pcl

sed 's/"+CHR(27)+"\E"+"/"+" "+"/g' <me.pcl > new.pcl

it does he job and we have no complaints from the inserters about reading the codes

good luck

Great, another good tip - Imagemagic, very usefull for handling images.
Thanks

I have a request for producing these bar codes on labels. Using Windows and GDI commands. If you have any examples to get me started that would be great.

Hi Joe,

Basically, ZINT (https://zint.github.io/), the great tip provided by Owen, takes care of almost everything.
The only thing you have to do is provide valid data to zint and a couple of QR-CODE settings.
You send the data and setting and receive a nice image file that you print and/or open.

Below you have a fully functional example, well, I've adjusted a few things here so, maybe it can be broken here and there but surely easy to fix.

Jorge:
Thank you very much. I have wondered how your are doing. Let us know please.

I took your code and changed it a little to get it to compile and to add some things to help me understand it and debug it. But I am missing something because I am not getting any data back from the call and get no error running it in ashell or windows prompt. Perhaps you can enlighten me.

Here is what I have..

map1 zint'path$,s,0
zint'path$ = chr(34) + "C:\Program Files (x86)\Zint\zint.exe" + chr(34)
map1 zint'output$,s,0
zint'output$ = "%temp%\myqrcode.png"
map1 qr'data$,s,0
map1 qrcode.dados$,s,100
map1 qr'code'file$,s,100
map1 qr'command$,s,300

open # 99,"qrcode.lst",output

qr'data$ = "A:PT509265499*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "B:PT180415514*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "C:PT*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "D:FT*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "E:N*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "F:20210223*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "G:FTA/00123*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "H:000000-FTA/00123*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "I1:PT*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "I5:1000,00*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "N:230,00*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "O:1230,00*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "Q:Xwt90*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "R:12345"

qr'command$ = zint'path$ + " -o " + zint'output$ + " -b 58 " + &
" --vers=9 --secure=2 " + " -d " + qrcode.dados$ + "," + status
?tab(-1,80)
?qr'command$
xcall hostex,qr'command$
xcall miamex, 96, 0, qr'code'file$
?"qr'code'file$ = ";qr'code'file$
? #99, "//IMAGE,";qr'code'file$;",1690,50,1960,320"

Hi Joe,
We are fine, after catching (my wife and me) COVID in January, fortunately, it was completely inofensive and, apparently, our daughter Violeta (2,5 years) didn't caught it, thank you.
Hopefully you and family are all fine and away from the "thing", because we were lucky about the sympthoms but that's not the rule.

Apologize for asking about the basics but, have you installed "zint" in the Programs folder?
Let me add that zint doesn't require installation, just extract it and put it wherever you want (in my case, I put ZINT folder inside of A-Shell bin folder).

Anyway I'm going to try your code here.

Hi again,

This was quick one

1.Delete the two variables you've add:
qrcode.dados$
qr'code'file$
2. replace all qr'code'file$ by zint'output$
3. replace all qrcode.dados$ by qr'data$
4. add "map1 status,f" or just remove it from the command

compile, run and you should have a nice qr-code in your screen

Thanks for the quick response. That worked! You saved me a lot of time. For future use here is the finished program.

map1 zint'path$,s,0
zint'path$ = chr(34) + "C:\Program Files (x86)\Zint\zint.exe" + chr(34)
map1 zint'output$,s,0
zint'output$ = "myqrcode.png"
map1 zint'dir$,s,0
zint'dir$ = "%temp%\"
map1 qr'data$,s,0
map1 qr'command$,s,0
map1 status,f

open # 99,"qrcode.lst",output

qr'data$ = "A:PT509265499*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "B:PT180415514*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "C:PT*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "D:FT*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "E:N*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "F:20210223*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "G:FTA/00123*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "H:000000-FTA/00123*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "I1:PT*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "I5:1000,00*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "N:230,00*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "O:1230,00*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "Q:Xwt90*"
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "R:12345"

qr'command$ = zint'path$ + " -o " + zint'dir$ + zint'output$ + " -b 58 " + " --vers=9 --secure=2 " + " -d " + qr'data$ + "," + status
?tab(-1,80)
?qr'command$
?status
xcall hostex,qr'command$
xcall miamex, 96, 0, zint'output$
?"zint'output$ = ";zint'output$
? #99, "//IMAGE,";zint'output$;",1690,50,1960,320"

I am glad to hear that you and your family are doing well and that you dodged the covid bullet. Chris and I are doing fine. Chris is playing tennis a few times a week. I am recovering from a pretty serious illness but I am skiing and hiking again. Kids and grandkids are all thriving. AMS stopped paying rent, taxes, utilities etc. when we gave up our office. We moved servers, sorters, printers to a small free office and we are all working remotely. I threw out all of my clothes except for sweat pants and pajamas and work from home every day. Life is good. It was good to hear from you and thanks again for the help.

Excellent! Now you can send a Love letter to Chris in a QR-CODE

I didn't realize you were so romantic. What program did you give your wife for Valentines Day?

I made out well with the Zint barcode. I thought the qr'data$ was some kind of command string but I realize now it was your data. The example program could be simplified and give some hits if it were something like `this:

qr'data$ = CHR$(34) + "Product # 1234 " + CHR$(13) + CHR$(10)
qr'data$ = qr'data$ + "Product Name : Paper Cup" + CHR$(34)

I am getting an extraneous ,0 at the end of my translated barcode. Any thoughts as to why.
I haven't located any documentation for things like fonts and such. Have you found anything?

This is romantic




Apologize for the confusing example, in fact I just copied most of the code from my initial testing program and the data is according the legal structure of an QR-CODE invoice in Portugal.
But I don't know if I understood what you want with fonts in a QR-CODE.
As you can see from the example above, there are a lot of qr-code builder packages that decorate the generated image with a lot of visual effects but I have the idea that Zint is very basic regarding those kind of options.
Now, if you are talking about font settings to display the content when reading, I never heard about that and I'm sure it would not be easy to make it work in a smartphone.
If you want a fancy result, the solution is to embbed a link to an web landing page where you can put all the whistles and bells there but, from what you put in your example, I guess that will not be a good option.

PS: regarding my Valentine's Day presents, apologize but that would be too much to reveal here

That's really a good one. I was just kidding. Very impressive.

But you made my point. I have no idea how to do that. Where can I find the instructions, list of functions, or whatever I need to learn how to do that or learn what I can do.

What you can do about the QR-CODE appearance depends on the external software you are using to produce it.
If you go with ZINT, there are not much settings, install Zint Studio and you will see that, besides color, there are not much to play with.
What you can do using the command line method just reproduces what you can do in Zint Studio.

If you want more power and create, a red heart, you need to search for a package, other than Zint, but most of them don't have a command line option, what will not serve to embbed in A-Shell.
Another great thing Zint has, it's not needing installation, I just distribute the zint folder inside the ashell bin folder and it's running in all my customer w/o any compatibility problem and avoiding installation issues.

I don't know if you have that clear but, what you are printing/vieweing after calling ZINT (or another package) is a regular image file containing the qr-code.
So, if you find any external way to produce an image and know where it is saved that you can grab it to use in A-Shell, that's what matters here.
Different from printing, where you send GDI commands and it will be the same no matter the printer you're using, to produce QR-CODES you must choose how you will produce the code and adjust your code accordingly.
To print, you can allways send red font commands no matter the printer is a coloIr printer, or not, the printer will interpret the command or ignore it.
To produce an red QR-CODE, your package must have the color setting, to make it with rounded corners, the package must have one setting to adjust the corner radius, and so on.

If you find the perfect package, with thousand of options but they don't provide an API, what you can try is to call the external program via hostex and, instruct your users to save the result (image file) in a specific folder and filename, on return from hostex you just have to check if there is an image file to grab it automatically or, use MX_GETOFD to pick any image file.

Anyway, I think that, regarding business QR-CODES, the Mies van der Rohe maximum "Less is more" fits like a glove and using a complex solutions for such simple task can be a shot in your foot.

In resume, and answering to your question, to learn the commands, you have to read the manual of the QR-CODE package you're using, regarding ZINT, it takes 2 minutes to read and apply all the available settings.

Thanks for the thorough explanation Jorge.

I am using Apex to output the barcode. I am only using it to control the size and placement but did not think about using it for more than that which I will play around with. You also made me realize I don't need to do everything within the barcode.

As for giving my customer a red heart I think that is a dangerous path to go down. What do I get my other customers? A chocolate barcode? Flowers? How would I keep Chris from fining out? If you have any suggestions lt me know.

My pleasure Joe.
Let me just reinforce that, if you only need to show the qrcode for the user read it, you don't even need to print and show it using APEX.
After run ZINT using HOSTEX, just open the resulting image using MIAMEX, MX_SHELLEX and you're done.

I understand. The program is done and I am ready to show it to the customer. Thanks for all of the help.
After the world gets spinning in the right direction maybe we'll get together again.
Until then ( or until I need some more help ) hug your family and revel in it.

Note that if you're trying to use ZINT in an ATSD/ATE environment (i.e. using ATE to connect to a remote Windows server), you have to tell HOSTEX to run the ZINT command in the background (by appending the " &" command modifier to the end of the command. For example:


(Note that this is just a minimal ZINT command line to generate a default bar code -- not a QR-code -- in the file out.png, which should appear in the current directory on the server.)

If for some reason you wanted to execute ZINT on the client (assuming it was installed on the client), then you would probably want to use something like AG_WINEXEC, e.g.

In this case the default output location would be the dsk0\001004 directory under the ATE installation. For preliminary testing you could use File > Open Local Session to check if it worked; for a production environment you would use some kind of command that can query or otherwise operate on client files from the server.

What I found was that there needs to be a little delay after the zint call to give it time for the file to be there.