BarcodeGenerator

!(http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1378/1125817164_6f57adb24a_o.png "sample barcode image")

Author : Anuj Luthra

Barcode generator makes generating/displaying bar-codes for certain alphanumeric ids a piece of cake. It uses Gbarcode for encoding barcode data and then rmagick to generate images out of it for displaying in views.

This way we can generate any barcode type which Gbarcode -> Gnome Barcode project supports.

USAGE:

its as simple as saying <%= barcode 'FJJ4JD'%>

This will generate a barcode for FJJ4JD in BARCODE_39 format with default width and height and include it in the view. the images are stored in /public/images/barcodes subdir.

Options Options Options:

To customize your barcodes, you can optionally pass following information in your views

• encoding_format (Gbarcode constants for eg. Gbarcode::BARCODE_128 etc..)
• width
• height
• scaling_factor
• xoff
• yoff
• margin
• no_ascii (accepts boolean true or false, prevents the ascii string from printing at the bottom of the barcode)
• output_method (currently accepts 'tag', or 'full_path' for either an image tag or the full file path to the image file)

in this case your view will look like :

<%= barcode 'ANUJ', :height => 100, :width => 400, :margin => 100, :xoff => 20, :yoff => 40 %>

Installation:

install from git : git://github.com/anujluthra/barcode-generator.git make sure that you install

1. gem for gbarcode

2. install native ImageMagick library

3. run the rake task : rake barcode_setup

   (If your are on OSX you also need to install the Postscript witch can be installed through Port)

Supported Barcode Formats:

Gbarcode as of now allows us to generate barcodes in following formats: BARCODE_EAN BARCODE_UPC BARCODE_ISBN BARCODE_128B BARCODE_128C BARCODE_128 BARCODE_128RAW BARCODE_39 BARCODE_I25 BARCODE_CBR BARCODE_MSI BARCODE_PLS BARCODE_93 BARCODE_ANY BARCODE_NO_CHECKSUM

for more information on Gbarcode visit http://gbarcode.rubyforge.org/rdoc/index.html