9/30/2014 Barcode Image Generation Library - CodeProject

Articles » Multimedia » General Graphics » Barcodes

Barcode Image Generation Library

Brad Barnhill, 27 Sep 2014
4.91 (507 votes)

This library was designed to give an easy class for developers to use when they need to generate
barcode images from a string of data.

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Introduction
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This article and its code provides a way for developers to put barcodes into their applications. It
allows for the generation of barcode images without the use of "barcode fonts". This need arose
out of the necessity for one of my own projects to use barcodes and the lack of free libraries on
the web to do the job.

To give an idea of what happens in this library: it first turns the data into a series of 1s and 0s
representing equal-width bars and spaces. This string of binary information is then sent to a
drawing function that converts it to an image representing the desired barcode. This approach
allows for one common drawing method to be used on all symbologies.

Supported Encoding Types

Code 128 Code11 Code 39 (Extended / Full ASCII)

Code 93 EAN-8 EAN-13

UPC-A UPC-E JAN-13

MSI ISBN Standard 2 of 5

Interleaved 2 of 5 PostNet UPC Supplemental 2

UPC Supplemental 5 Codabar ITF-14

Telepen Pharmacode FIM (Facing Identification Mark)

** Keep in mind that some symbologies go by more than one name, so make sure the one you
are using isn't listed above by a different name before contacting me to add it. If it isn't listed
above and you would like me to look at adding it to this library, please post a comment below,
and I will take a look at it as soon as possible. (Bugs are always a priority, so please send me bug
reports.)

Using the Code

The library contains a class called BarcodeLib. There are three constructors:

Barcode();
Barcode(string);
Barcode (string, BarcodeLib.TYPE);

If you decide to create an instance with parameters, the parameters are as follows: the string is
the data to be encoded into the barcode, and BarcodeLib.TYPE is the symbology to encode
the data with. If you do not choose to specify the data and type at the time the instance is
created, you may specify them through the appropriate property later on (but before you
encode).

BarCodeLib.Barcode b = new BarCodeLib.Barcode(BarCodeLib.TYPE.UPCA,

"038000356216", Color.Black, Color.White, 300, 150);

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To get the image representing the data generated, you must then call one of the many Encode
functions.

public Image Encode(TYPE iType, string StringToEncode, int Width, int Height)
public Image Encode(TYPE iType, string StringToEncode,
Color ForeColor, Color BackColor, int Width, int Height)
public Image Encode(TYPE iType, string StringToEncode, Color ForeColor, Color BackColor)
public Image Encode(TYPE iType, string StringToEncode)
Encode(TYPE iType)
Encode()

The resulting Image contains the barcode in image format. More functionality has been added,
so you can save the Image once it is encoded.

public void SaveImage(string Filename, SaveTypes FileType)

This function can be used by specifying the full path (filename included) of the location you
would like to save the image to as a string. The second parameter is an enumerator
(BarcodeLib.SaveTypes) that represents the supported types (JPG, BMP, PNG, GIF, TIFF) of
files you can save. Functionality has been added so that you can now set the IncludeLabel
parameter to allow it to draw the data that's encoded in the barcode, below the image, as a label.
Keep in mind that this will take up some of the space you specify for the size of the image.

b.IncludeLabel = true;

This is used to put the data encoded at the bottom of the image. If you do not set this
parameter, it will just generate the barcode without the data at the bottom.

Points of Interest
Writing this library offered me the chance to become intimately familiar with how barcode
symbologies work and how the symbologies differ from one another.

A new property has been added to allow exportation of the image and properties in XML format.
Keep in mind that the barcode must be encoded first before this property is read; otherwise, an
error will be thrown to notify you of this mistake.

b.XML

History
October 10, 2007

Initial release (bugs most certainly exist, and a couple of symbologies need to be
modified/implemented).

October 16, 2007

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using (Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(b))

{
g.DrawLine(new Pen(c), x, 0, x, b.Height);
g.DrawLine(new Pen(c), x + 1, 0, x + 1, b.Height);
}//using

Updated Encode_Code39() to fix a bug that didn't include inter-character spaces.

Also, updated the function Generate_Image(Color, Color), and replaced the
section using SetPixel with the following:

October 17, 2007

using (Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(b))

{
g.DrawLine(new Pen(c, (float)2), new Point(x, 0),
new Point(x, b.Height));
}//using

Changed the Generate_Image(Color, Color) function again to be a little more

efficient. Instead of drawing two lines, it just uses a 2px-wide pen now.
Added the ability to call BarcodeLib.Generate_Labels(Image), it will add the
label showing the data encoded at the bottom of the barcode.
Fixed a bug in the Test application where, if you encoded with PostNet as the type,
it would automatically try to put the label at the bottom and labels aren't available
on PostNet images. This caused it to throw an error that a try{}catch{} can
handle for now.

Took c0ax_lx's advice and moved...

using (Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(b))

... outside the while loop to improve resource usage.

October 26, 2007

Article edited and moved to the main CodeProject article base.

November 1, 2007

Complete restructuring of the library to abstract portions of it. Should be much

cleaner to look at.
An interface was added to force any updates to adhere to the structure.

There were some bugs that were fixed in this release.

Some of the encoding types on the menu were encoding with a different type than
they said.
Changed CheckNumericOnly() to be one line of code instead of a massive O^2
complicated take. (Thanks, Pete!)

December 9, 2007

int pos = 0;
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Bug fixed in UPC-E encoding that would cause an index-out-of-range exception to

be thrown. (Thanks Luca Z.)
This library is getting better with the help of people like Luca and Pete. Keep up the
good work, friends.

April 16, 2008

Code 128 support (beta) (the FNC* chars are still not encoding right... I have to
figure that out), but ... it's at least here for your trial and for your comments.
Also, there were a few country codes left out of the EAN-13 assigning country
lookup. I added what I could find that I left out.
Changed the CheckNumericOnly() back to a more complex task because some
data being encoded was longer than what Int64.TryParse(string, out) could
handle ... so back to a more complex, but still a faster, task than comparing each
char. Now, I break the string into pieces and test each piece.
May 3, 2008

Code 128 had some bug fixes added.

One was present in InsertStartandCodeCharacters().
Bug fixed when trying to encode an apostrophe, it needed an escape character
when selecting the data for it from the dataset.

May 27, 2008

PostNet now supports 5, 6, 9, 11 digit data.

Also, a bug with the check-digit for PostNet is fixed.
Code 128 now supports specifying and locking the encoding to a specific type
(Code A, B, C).
Code 39 Extended (Full ASCII) is now supported.

May 29, 2008

Bug fixed (thanks Koru.nl) in Bitmap Generate_Image(Color DrawColor,

Color BackColor) that caused the drawing to be off by one horizontal pixel. This
caused the drawing to cut 1 pixel width off the first bar that was drawn if it was
drawn up against the edge of the image.
The drawing function also changed a bit to eliminate the variable int x; from the
function.
All positions are now calculated off the variable int pos;, which cuts out one
unnecessary and confusing variable.

July 30, 2008

this.C128_Code.CaseSensitive = true;

Bug fixed (thanks Kazna4ey and WolfgangRoth) in init_Code128() that caused

.Select(string filterExpression) to return the wrong rows due to case
insensitivity. So, the following was added:
Another function byte[] GetImageData(SaveTypes savetype) was added so
that users may request the bytes of the image easily. (Useful if using Crystal Reports,

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etc.)

August 26, 2008

Bug fixed (thanks JackyWu2005) in Code128.cs that was preventing the proper start
characters from being inserted. This only happened when switching back to A from
any other encoding type.

October 20, 2008

Added ITF-14 and Code93.

Fixed a bug in Save As functionality that was not saving files in the selected format.
Labels now show checksums except in C128 and C11.

December 3, 2008

Can now specify image size before encoding.

Complete overhaul of the drawing function to allow for dynamic drawing size. Now
calculates the bar width based on the specified image size. Removed resize
functions due to inaccuracy of the resizing method. The encoding functions have
been revamped to reflect these changes (removed some of the overloaded
functions referencing the resize functions). Also removed a majority of the case
statements from Generate_Image() to simplify it. Updated the article to reflect
the changes to the Encode functions and the changes to the drawing functions.

February 11, 2009

Fixed bug in Code 128C that would not insert a 0 in front of an odd length string of
raw data.
Fixed a bug (thanks Shaihan Murshed) in Code 39 that let the user encode * in the
string of data. This should only be used for starting characters, and is now handled.
Fixed a bug in Code 39 that was inserting an extra 0 at the end of the encoded
string. This did not affect the validity of the barcodes, it was just not supposed to be
there.
Added a new property to the library called FormattedData. This value is what is
actually encoded. It is formatted for certain types of barcodes, for example, Code 39
requires * in front and behind the barcode.

June 4, 2009 (1.0.0.6)

Fixed a bug in Code128-A and Code128-B that would cause it to encode incorrectly
due to incorrectly trying to compact the barcode for Code128-C. This functionality is
now bypassed if Code128-A or Code128-B is selected.
Removed a useless variable bEncoded from BarcodeLib.cs.
static methods now support generating the data label (required addition of a
parameter to 3 of the 5 static methods used to encode).
Property now available to retrieve the amount of time (EncodingTime) it took to
encode and generate the image. (Might be helpful for diagnostics.)
Modified a few error messages to be more descriptive about correcting the problem
with data length.
The Barcode class now inherits from IDisposable - XML export functionality
added to BarcodeLib to allow the data, encoded data, and other properties to be
exported in XML along with the image in Base64String format. This includes
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functionality to GetXML() and GetImageFromXML(BarcodeXML).

To go along with the XML functionality, there is now a dataset included that has the
basic layout of the XML data to make importing and exporting easy.
ImageFormat is now a property to set to select what type of image you want
returned (JPEG is default). This can help speed of transferring data if using a Web
Service.
ITF-14 now draws the label with the proper background color instead of always
being white.

August 16, 2009 (1.0.0.7)

Fixed a bug that allowed non-numeric data to be encoded with Code128-C, a check
has been put in place to handle this. It throws an error EC128-6 now, if found to
contain something that isn't in Code128-C.
Fixed a bug in GetEncoding() for C128. This would allow Code128-B to switch and
dynamically use Code128-A if it couldn't find a char in its set.

November 2, 2009 (1.0.0.8)

Changed the use of a Pen object that was not disposed of. This was not causing a
problem, just bad technique.
Fixed an encoding issue with C128-B that had a wrong character in its encoding set
at one point (U instead of Z in codeset B).

January 4, 2010 (1.0.0.9)

The UPC-A check digit is now calculated every time whether 11 or 12 digits are
passed in. If 12 is passed in and it has got an incorrect check digit, then it is
replaced with the correct check digit. This prevents an unscannable barcode from
being generated.
The EAN13 check digit is now calculated every time whether 12 or 13 digits are
passed in. If 13 is passed in and it has got an incorrect check digit, then it is
replaced with the correct check digit. This prevents an unscannable barcode from
being generated.
All errors can be accessed via the BarcodeLib.Errors properties which is a list of
separate errors encountered.
All symbologies were moved to the BarcodeLib.Symbologies namespace for
better organization.
The FormattedData property was not being used, so it was removed.
The Version property was added to BarcodeLib to allow reading the libraries
version number.

April 28, 2010 (1.0.0.10)

Fixed a bug in Code 39 extended that was erasing the start and stop characters if
extended was used.
Fixed a bug that if barcodes were aligned left or right, they would cut off a part of
the starting or ending bar, which was a drawing bug that's been present since
1.0.0.0.
Fixed a bug in Code 128C that checked for numeric data; if it was bigger than Int64
and was numeric, it would throw an exception saying it was non-numeric data.
Fixed a bug in UPC-A that encoded with the same sets as EAN-13 and only CodeA
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and CodeC should have been used.

Made the Version property static so it can be read without creating an instance.
Added a LabelFont property to allow the labels font to be changed.
Restructured the label drawing functions to take font height and use that to
determine the height of the label.
Created an IsNumeric function in C128-C to better separate that functionality.
Replaced Int64 with Int32 to better allow compatibility with x86 processors.
EncodingTime now includes the time to draw the image and not just the encoding.
Alignment property added to allow aligning the barcode in the image given if the
image space is wider than the drawn barcode. (Default is centered.)
Postnet drawing is incorporated into the default drawing case now, which shortens
the code and gets rid of some redundant code.
Telepen symbology added.

July 18, 2010 (1.0.0.11)

Fixed a bug in Code 93 that caused four characters to be encoded incorrectly.

Fixed a bug where the ITF-14 bearer bars were not drawing evenly.
Fixed a bug in Codabar that would report an object not set to a reference error if
non-numeric is found.
Added property LabelPosition to position label above or below the barcode, and
align the label left, right, or center.
Added property RotateFlipType to allow rotation/flipping the image before it is
returned.
Added several of the newer properties to the XML output of GetXML().
Removed Codabar start / stop characters in the label.
IsNumeric function added to BarcodeCommon so that every symbology has access
to it.

June 16, 2011 (1.0.0.12)

Fixed a bug in drawing of barcodes that caused barcodes to be cut off on the left
and right when aligned to the sides.
Fixed a bug in the project where the BarcodeXML dataset was corrupt.
Added the GetSizeOfImage function that returns the real world coordinates of the
EncodedImage.
Facing Identification Mark(FIM) symbology added.

June 12, 2012 (1.0.0.13)

Corrected comments on class summaries

Eliminated some unnecessary private variables

June 12, 2012 (1.0.0.14)

Added a byte array representation of the encoded image (Encoded_Image_Bytes)

which can be used in Crystal Reports. See (Barcodes in Crystal Reports)
Updated the XML schema to use integers instead of Enums due to versioning
conflicts.

June 16, 2013 (1.0.0.15)

Fixed a bug in the Codabar symbology that would not allow valid non-numeric
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characters from being encoded.

Fixed a bug that would not encode C128-C codes with FNC1 in the starting
characters.
Fixed a bug in the ITF-14 check digit calculation where it would calculate the wrong
check digit most of the time.

November 23, 2013 (1.0.0.16)

Removed duplicate IsNumeric check method, moved CheckNumericOnly method to

BarcodeCommon
Pharmacode symbology added.

September 27, 2014 (1.0.0.17)

Fixed a bug in Code 11 where K checksums were being calculated for messages
shorter than 10 characters in length.
Fixed a bug in PostNet that drew incorrectly for all PostNet barcodes (thanks
jonney3099)
Added Code 39 Mod 43 support
Updated the GetImageSize method to return an ImageSize object containing the
real world size of the image generated.

License
This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project
Open License (CPOL)

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About the Author

Brad Barnhill
Software Developer Cerner Corporation
United States

Brad Barnhill has a Masters in Nursing from the University of Tennessee (UTHSC), and a Bachelors
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in Computer Science from UT as well. His interests are C#, barcodes, developing controls for
other developers to use, and distributed computing. He has been employed as a software
developer since 2004.

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