I am creating an application that emails an embedded coupon out to my clients customers.
The client would like to send out an email with a coupon in the body of the email. On that coupon there needs to be a bar code, where part of the bar code is generated from the customers identification number.
My question, does anyone know how to generate a bar code number in a Notes email? Either through Lotusscript or via a third party product.
Subject: Bar code generator in Notes document
Buy a (or construct Your own) “barcode”-font. Then use this font in the form that is used for creating the coupon. Then create a PDF from the notesform and then attach this PDF in the email… That is how I would do it. I wouldn’t try to create a barcode directly in the email because this would require the receiver to have the barcode font installed, which isn’t very likely.
Just my thoughts…
Subject: RE: Bar code generator in Notes document
Thanks for the responses. Based on what I have gotten back I am going to push to have some type of bar code generator create the document and save it on a server. Then use lotusscript to attach the file to an outgoing email.
Subject: Bar code generator in Notes document
The computational part of generating a bar code is generally dead simple; most bar codes simply represent a batch of numbers of fixed length with a check digit tacked on at the end. A quick web search for the algorithms should turn up that information for you quickly. The tricky bit is the graphic representation. That usually requires a special font (which you will almost certainly have to buy) and some idea of how to map the numbers you want your bar code to represent to that font (which is something the documentation for the font you buy should spell out).
The really tricky bit for you in particular is how to take something put together in a special font and mail it to somebody who almost certainly won’t have that font. You’ll probably have to go a step deeper (and several steps more expensive) and buy some tools that will allow you to automatically generate a graphic representation of a bar code (say, a .gif or .jpg file), which you can then attach to a mail message and send off. However, if you shell out the bucks for something that will do that, the software in question should handle all the hard work. That is, if you hand it a batch of numbers you want turned into a bar code and a desired format (UPC, EAN, code 128, etc.), it will take things from there and hand you back your bar code thingie.
Subject: Use Integra for Notes to generate bar codes
Integra for Notes is a 3rd party tool that allows exporting of data from Lotus Notes to Word and Excel. This will give you the capability to generate the bar codes too. Have a look at http://www.integra4notes.com and search for barcodes.
Subject: Bar code generator in Notes document
We’re looking at using this free, open source, Java solution. You can import the classes into an agent and then dynamically create barcodes and save them as JPGs: