PDF417 Settings

PDF417 is a two-dimensional, multi-row Barcode. It is used for encoding large amounts of data, with hundreds or even thousands of characters. It encodes alphabetic text, numbers, binary files and actual data bytes.

Use the following options to configure the output Barcode settings:

• General group:

  • Include in output checkbox: This determines whether of not this Additional Content entry should be included in the output or not.
    It is checked by default for all new entries.
    This option allow for "libraries" of Additional Content to be created in Presets, libraries from which you can pick and choose what entries you wish to have included, at time of printing.

  • Description edit box: An edit box for adding an optional Description to the Additional Content entry.

• Position group:

  • Orientation: Use the drop-down to select the orientation of the Barcode added to the page.

  • Output once per sheet: This option relates to Imposition printing (see Imposition), also known as N-Up printing. Select this box to have the Barcode printed once per sheet rather than once per document page.

    If Imposition options such as auto-positioning and scaling were selected, these options won't apply to the Additional Content added to the physical N-Up sheet.

  • Left: Enter the distance between the left margin of the page and the Barcode, in either metric (cm/mm), inch (in) or point (pt) values.

  • Bottom: Enter the distance between the bottom margin of the page and the Barcode, in either metric (cm/mm), inch (in) or point (pt) values.

• PDF417 Properties group:
• Module Width: Specifies the width of the narrow bars. Changing this value to a higher value will generally make the Barcode bigger.
• Row height: Defines the height of the bars for a single row, measured in pixels, points or metric.
• Width to height ratio: Select the ratio of column width to row height.
• Mode: Use the drop-down to set the compaction mode.
• Binary: allows any byte value to be encoded.
• Text: allows all printable ASCII characters to be end coded (ASCII values 32 to 126 and some additional control characters).
• Numeric: more efficient mode for encoding numeric data.
• Auto: Automatically detect the data content and encodes using the most appropriate method. This is the default option.
• Error Correction Level: Enter the error correction level for the built-in error correction method based on Reed-Solomon algorithms. The error correction level is adjustable between level 0 (just error detection, without correction) and level 8 (maximum error correction). Recommended error correction levels are between level 2 and 5, but the optimal value depends on the amount of data, printing quality of the PDF417 symbol and decoding capabilities.
• Rows: A PDF417 bar code can have anywhere from 3 to 90 rows.
• Columns: The number of data columns can vary from 1 to 30.

• Tilde processing

  Check this option to process tilde (~) characters in the data as special characters. (See the Java4less Barcodes Guide to learn what the tilde character can be used for.)
  The tilde is expected to be followed by the 'd' character and 3 digits representing an ASCII character: ~dNNN . For example, ~d013 represents a carriage return.
  Note that with this option checked, any tilde that needs to be included in the output must be escaped by adding another tilde: ~~.

• Text: Enter the text used to generate the Barcode.

  •  Add button: Click to display a list of variable data that could be used for generating the Barcode.
    This includes metadata fields which must previously have been added in the Metadata options, likely at the Document Tags level (see Metadata Options), as well as some information fields.

• Condition: Enter the condition which determines whether or not the Barcode will be added to the document at print time. For details on how to create a conditional, see How to Set Conditionals.

  •  Add button: Click to display a list of metadata fields, information fields to add, or common expressions to the condition.