Scripting in BarTender

The topics contained within this section refer to using Visual Basic scripts within BarTender's user interface. To automate BarTender from an external application, you will need to use BarTender's ActiveX Automation interface or install the BarTender .NET SDK. For more information, refer to the topic Automating BarTender.

Most of the functions you need to perform with BarTender can be done directly in the application. BarTender's scripting capability simply provides more advanced functionality to the application and lets you customize the data and objects via a text editor, if you so wish.

BarTender's internal scripting engine is designed to help with the following tasks:

Providing the data for a data source or object: When used as a data source type, text, encoder, and barcode objects receive directly from a custom VBScript. This lets you fulfill special input requirements, such as modifying imported data and combining multiple pieces of information. By offering the power of Microsoft's Visual Basic Script as a data source type, BarTender lets you process and combine the data for objects on a template in just about any way imaginable. For more information, refer to VBScript as a Data Source Type.
Performing special validation or other processing on data from another data source, such as a database or the keyboard: Sometimes your data needs to be validated or processed in an unusual way before printing. Using the VBScript transform, you can modify the data and control data source input. For more information, refer to Using the VBScript Transform.
Altering the data or object formatting at certain intervals: BarTender's document-level events and regular events let you customize the behavior of your document and template design at specified intervals, such as at print-time or when a document is opened. For more information, refer to Document Level Events.

Although Visual Basic Script can be complex enough to be considered a "program:)," there are times when just a single line of Visual Basic Script can prove quite useful. Still, scripting is typically a technique for "power users" and not ideal for computer novices. Whatever your computer skills, you should always be sure that BarTender doesn’t already offer a solution to your challenge before embarking upon a script-based solution.

In This Section

Procedures

Describes the various types of procedures, sharing script between objects, and how to define global variables.
Document Level Events

Details how to enable Visual Basic scripting for document-level events, and describes the available document event scripts included with BarTender.
VBScript Data Source Type

Explains how to set the data source type, and describes the different types of scripts at your disposal.
VBScript Transform

Describes how to use the VB Script transform for data processing and validation.