Looking for help creating App..inc. Hand Scanner..

[secretcrowds]

Hello

I am looking for a great deal of help on creating a MS Access database Application for letters and leaflets to be scanned into.

The idea behind it, is that a letter..addressed to Mr Joe Bloggs, needs a leaflet attatched, also addressed to Mr Joe Bloggs.

I am trying to find a way of creating an application for scanning 2D barcodes on both the letter and leaflet, to make sure that the correct leaflet goes with each correct letter.

Im thinking I will need something written into the 2D barcode of each letter and leaflet, eg. L1(letter) goes with C1(leaflet), and L2 goes with C2 etc etc..

I would be very thankful for any help I recieve with this project.

Thank you in advance.

 

[KenHigg]

So you print a letter to John Doe. The letter is supposed to have leaflet #5 attached to it. So once the letter is printed the operator looks at the letter and at the bottom it says something like: Attachement: Leaflet #5. So the they get a copy of this leaflet and staple it to the letter. Is this how it works? And now you want them to do an additional step of scanning the letter and the leaflet to make sure they have attached the correct leaflet?

 

[secretcrowds]

Hi Ken

Yeah sort of, the information will probably be stored in the 2D barcode for each letter and each leaflet.

I want the database to be able to read the scanned barcode from the letter, then be able to scan the barcode from the relevant leaflet. But if the wrong leaflet was scanned, it would throw up an error and not let the operator continue.

 

[KenHigg]

I googled it and this looked like a good starting point:

Link

 

[secretcrowds]

thanks for the link.

Unfortuanatly im not looking to print the 2D barcodes in this application.

I already have another means of those being printed.

I am just looking for a way to find out how I can tie a database into this so it will recognize which letter to go with which leaflet etc.

 

[KenHigg]

Do you already have a scanner / barcode reader?

 

[secretcrowds]

i do indeed

 

[KenHigg]

With the scanner I have used you simply place the cursor in the appropriate feild and scan the barcode and the data appears just as if you typed it in with the keyboard. Is this not the case with your scanner?

 

[secretcrowds]

Yeah, thats the thing, it does appear with the information.

But would there be a way for a database to be put in to control whats being scanned?

 

[KenHigg]

I think your first hurdle is going to be to figure out how to get the data in from the scanner. Have you been able to get any info from the scanner into any other apps or is this the first time you've ever tried to use it?

Edit: My bad, did you say you are able to read data from the scanner into a text box control in Access?

 

[secretcrowds]

It has been able to be recorded in a seperate application, when running just letters through ,scanning the barcode, and recording the information.

Not an access run app though.

 

[KenHigg]

When you use it to scan data into another app does it work as I described where it you simply put the cursor where you want the data and do the scan?

 

[secretcrowds]

yeah it certinaly does.

but when its pointed to the app, it gets read, and recorded.

 

[KenHigg]

Hum... Not sure whats going on there. If the scanner will read into one app it should read into another. Try this: Open notepad and try to scan in a barcode in it - ?

 

[secretcrowds]

yeah, it scans and shows the information in notepad.

I'll have to try putting a little sample together and see how that goes.

 

[KenHigg]

I'm guessing that if you have a form and put your cursor in a text box, instead of typing in the data from the keyboard you try and scan the data in, it should work.