Density |
The density of a barcode refers to how many characters can be encoded per inch. One factor controlling the density of a barcode is its symbology. Different symbologies require different numbers of bars and spaces to represent the same information. The density of a barcode is also affected by the thickness of the narrow and wide bars and spaces. The narrower the bars and spaces, the less room it takes to print out the barcode and the higher the density of the barcode in characters per inch.
As the character density of a barcode increases, the room required to print it decreases, allowing the barcode message to take up less space. While this seems desirable, if the density is increased too much, the readability of the barcodes can decrease due to the following factors:
The optics of the scanning device may not be precise enough to properly detect the skinny lines and spaces of the barcodes.
The printing tolerance of the printing device may not be precise enough to produce good bars at the higher density settings.
When printing high-density barcodes on either dot matrix or laser printers, please keep in mind that you may require a high-resolution optical scanner to read the codes. For a variety of reasons (e.g., the age of your dot-matrix printer head or toner specks from your laser printer), it is possible that the narrow white spaces between the bars can become too narrow to be detected by a low to medium resolution optical scanner. In addition, it is also possible for your laser printer to produce lines that are finer than the optical resolving capability of your optical scanner. Therefore, if you plan to print high-density barcodes, we recommend the use of a high-resolution optical scanner.
Low-density dot-matrix barcodes can be used for the production of high quality camera-ready artwork. If a low-density barcode is photographically reduced, the individual dots from the dot-matrix printer disappear, making it appear as though it was produced using a high quality laser printer.
When the US Postnet symbology is specified,
To change the density of a barcode
There are two methods of changing the density of a barcode using
Mouse Method
Click on the barcode that you want to modify.
Position the pointer cursor over any one of the barcode's left or right side handles and click and hold down your primary mouse button.
Continuing to hold down your primary mouse button, drag the selected handle until the barcode is displayed at the desired density.
Release the mouse button.
Menu Method
Double-click on the barcode that you want to modify to open the Barcode Properties dialog.
Click the Density option on the Symbology and Size property page.
Click on the up or down spin control arrows until the desired density value is displayed in the edit box.
Click the Close button.