Q - What options should be used to print barcodes on line items on a laser form? I can easily print a barcode at the top or bottom of the page, but line item barcode options have confused me.

A - Let's explain this by using a pick ticket, which has a header and line item areas.  If you look at the default laser template “03 Picking Ticket W/Order & item# Barcode.”  See sample screens 1 and 2 below:

Go to the barcodes tab, choose the first barcode (see sample screen 2 above) as a sample.  The actual printing output of a pick ticket would be like the following sample screen 3:

The main idea you need to know is that we print “line item barcode” by first identifying a data pattern for each line item as the base line, then retrieving and printing the barcode relative to this base line.

1. In this case, we know each line item has a “request date” printed in a certain column that looks like ??/??/??. See screen 3. Then in the barcodes set up area, you will see we look for pattern ??/??/?? starting from rows 25 to rows 54 (line item areas on the pick ticket), and column 11. Once we find that data pattern, we then declare that is a line item and this is a base line.
   
2. Then we need to determine the relative position of where the data source should come from. In this case, we are looking for item number.  We declare the data source is on the same line as base line by specifying the row = 0. The data is in Column 20 for length of 15. That’s where the item number resides.
   
3. After this, we need to decide the relative position to print the barcode. In this case, we decide to put the barcode below the base line (base line = row 0). The barcode starting position is 1,49 to ending position 2,79 and we will define a box area where the barcode will go.
   

EMK