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In some manufacturing situations, portable devices or terminals are used to print items. In many cases, these portable devices and terminals are dedicated to one job (such as printing). They usually do not run the Microsoft Windows operating system and cannot run a printing package such as BarTender.

These portable devices and terminals typically merge user input information, such as lot number and expiration date, into the printer code for a template and then send the completed printer code directly to the printer.

Other systems might use software printing applications that insert user information into the printer code for an item. An example of such a system is SAP/R3, which uses SAPscript-ITF files. A SAPscript-ITF file is composed mostly of printer code, but it has extra field information for data input substitution and system processing. The SAP/R3 system software opens the SAPscript-ITF file (composed of printer code and extra fields), merges the user information into it, and then sends it to the printer.

Collectively, these devices, terminals, and printing applications are called print systems.

To support various print systems, BarTender provides printer code template generation. A printer code template contains mostly native printer code, but it also contains delimited fields that the print system can recognize and use to merge user input information.

A new capability that is supported by some printers is the ability to receive and process XML-formatted print job information. The printer can take a previously stored template and populate its field data with the information from the XML file for each printed item. BarTender has built-in printer code template print system support for several XML printers, and custom print systems can be added for other XML-capable printers by using the printer code template features.

In This Section

• Printer Code Template Setup Dialog

  BarTender comes with a set of predefined print systems. By using the Printer Code Template Setup dialog, you can view a list of these print systems and view or modify the properties of these print systems. If none of the predefined print systems match your needs, you can create any number of your own custom print systems.

• Export Printer Code Template Dialog

  You can use the Export Printer Code Template dialog to generate a printer code template by using a specified print system. Additionally, you can specify whether the formatting and data information should be combined into a single printer code template or split into two separate files.

• Printer Code Template Options Dialog

  The Printer Code Template Options dialog enables you to configure the printer, output, and performance options for a printer code template. Additionally, you can configure the data field names that you will use to export a printer code template.

• Verification Messages Dialog

  The Verification Messages dialog informs you of any design issues that your document may have that will affect the printed output or the exported printer code templates.