Barcodes

[Charlie]

I remember someone (maybe Demon?) posting about using a barcode reader and barcode labels to keep track of components, but I could not find the threads again. I always thought it was a great idea because anything you buy is normally in a package with a sticker already coded so it makes keeping track of inventory much easier. The other day I found a barcode reader for $14 on eBay, so I picked one up. The scanner works great, however printing the labels is proving to be the real challenge!
If you are doing something like this, how are you printing barcode labels for the containers? Did you download a font from somewhere, and if you did, does it work in Word and Excel? I've found a couple free fonts, but I'm not happy with the result. They seem to either look good on the screen but are blurry on the printer, or work in Excel, but not Word, or a variety of other shortcomings. I'm not ready to commit to paying hundreds of dollars for a font that *might* work, especially to simply keep track of where I put some parts.
Thanks for any insight!

[aerostar]

Google is your friend !!! Search for word barcode font and First one up is http://www.barcodesinc.com/free-barcode-font/

Have used this with good results.

[Charlie]

Google is your friend !!! Search for word barcode font and First one up is http://www.barcodesinc.com/free-barcode-font/

Have used this with good results.

Google and I have been dating for decades. Unfortunately when I tried that one, it looked great on the screen, and printed with grey between the black bars rendering the code unreadable.

[aerostar]

I have just checked this on an inkjet printer and there is no grey between the bars and the code works fine on my barcode reader and my Android tablet.

[Charlie]

Looks like the issue is Word. If I try Excel, it works. Too bad - there are downloadable templates for common peel and stick labels for Word. Guess I'll have to build my own.

If you are playing with this, you might want to try this font too: /http://www.idautomation.com/free-bar...s/code39-font/
It's 1/2" high and puts the human readable text underneath, which saves typing the information twice. This one and the one in a previous post have different start / end characters so a bit of experimenting and wasted paper is required to get going.