Azalea Software, Inc. www.azalea.com Print UPC Barcodes in Excel Databases UPC in Access

Our products come with free sample code to integrate our fonts in Access databases. Creating barcodes in Microsoft Access is an easy two part process: pass your data in, then format the returned value into one of our fonts. You’ll find instructions and sample Access databases below.

There are two ways to add UPC barcodes to your Access projects. The long way is to use our Visual Basic functions in your own Access programs.

VB macro reference implementation:
    UPC version A  •  UPC version E  •  ISBN-13  •  EAN-13  •  EAN-8
    UPC version A check digit  •  UPC version E undo

We also offer an Access plug-in that calls our barcode.dll encoder. Below are instructions for using the plug-in and DLL.

Access plug-in:
    UPCAsampleinput.mdb

When you need to print UPC style barcodes from within a Microsoft Access database, you can make it easy by using Azalea's free barcode.dll along with our UPC TrueType fonts. Our barcode.dll adds the start and stop bars to your input string, calculates the necessary check digit, and then it maps the output into our fonts’ character set. To make a UPC barcode, you'll need to use the our DLL because you cannot simply format a chunk of text in a bar code font and create a scannable bar code symbol. Azalea's DLL will do all of the heavy lifting for you and make it effortless.

1. Download barcode.dll and save it into your\WINDOWS\SYSTEM or \WINNT\SYSTEM32 directory, as appropriate. Then you'll want to download UPCsampleinput.mdb, our sample database. Open Microsoft Access.

2. In Access, open the database window; then click “Modules”.

Insert a new formula

Close this database and make sure you remember its path and then open the database with your information that you need to barcode.

3. Import your UPC functions by opening your database and attaching UPCAsampleinput.mdb. Open the File menu and select Get External Data/Import. Enter the path to the UPCsampleinput.mdb database.

Name your formula

4. Provide the path for upcasampleinput.mdb; then in the “Import Objects” window, click the “Modules” tab, highlight “AzaleaUPC” and then click OK.

Choose a function

5. Begin your query design by clicking “Queries”.

Enter a database field name

6. Then double-click “Design view”. Select the table you wish to print bar codes from. Choose “Add” and then “Close”.

Select formula name

7. In the small window pane, click twice on the field containing your UPC, EAN/JAN, Bookland or ISSN input data. Uncheck the “Show” check box (we just want the bar code).

Right-click on the first row field and select “Build”.

Select formula name

8. In the expression builder window on the left pane, expand “Functions”, then expand “UPCsampleinput”. On the right pane, select “AzaleaUPC_A”. (or another function name listed on the right pane that you want to print).

Select formula name

9. Replace “InputString” with the name of the input data field (in our example, “UPCA” without the quotes). Click “OK” and then make sure you save and name your query. To select your entire query field, go to File>Menu>Format>Fonts and select one of Azalea’s UPC fonts (e.g UPCTallThin) at size point 73 (this meets GS-1 UPC standards).

10. Run the query; double-click the name of your query in the main database window.

Need help? Email us at azalea at azalea dot com or call 1.206.341.9500