Question QR Scanner Input

[Teady91]

Hi All,
I have a bit of a challenge for you

My workplace requires me to process large amounts of quality assurance documents. They need to be printed out, usually using a mail merge each with its own unique document number. Sent to site, filled in, signed off by several different people then scanned and saved with the document number as their name. There could be thousands of these documents.
The scanner we use has the capability of scanning each page into a new pdf or image file.

My initial thought is to have a QR code containing the document number on each document, then programmaticly extract the number from the document then name it accordingly.

Is this possible and has anyone done something like this before? or does anyone have a different solution?

I read the following thread:
http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=202325
And found it useful, but if anyone has come across new info let me know.

Regards,
Taison

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

Why a QR Code? It would be much simpler to do it with bar codes.

 

[Teady91]

I guess i just thought of QR codes because i have been playing around with a qr reader on my android device. If a bar code would work better then cool.
Do you know of any existing projects that have this sort of thing integrated with an access database?
Ultimately i would like to have it run from my document control database and update a table with the details of each document.

 

[John Big Booty]

My experience with QR scanners, is that they are generally embedded in a cell phone or similar, and are usually geared toward reading and saving contact details to the phone or following a hyper-link. So what you are going to need to do is save the output from the QR reader to either a plain text file or CSV file and then import it into your DB. However if you are using a bar-code reader you can cut out the intermediate step and read the output of the scanner directly into your DB.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

Not sure exactly what you want to do, however basically all you need is a barcode scanner and a bar code font Installed on to your PC. Then you can use this bar code font, it will turn any number into a bar code.

There are a variety of different bar code fonts, all have their advantages and disadvantages one of the best for a simple numeric code is EAN: 128, from recollection you can usually download these fonts for free.

The barcode scanner just plugs into your USB Port, you don't need any software, it just transmits the numbers scanned in exactly the same way as your keyboard. Usually the barcode scanner is set up by default to transmit the "enter key" as the last command enabling you to carry on with your programming.

 

[spikepl]

There is code out there that can determine whether there is a barcode in a PDF or not, and if there is, extract the value. Google.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

I am currently working on a project for a retail shop, I have set up a barcode scanner and a label printer, a very nice system for printing out pricing labels, information labels, loads of different sorts of labels simply and easily from MS Access and a very nice label printer. I may be doing an article about it, haven't quite made up my mind yet, as I may be able to develop it into a "passive income" product for my old age!

 

[Teady91]

Thanks. I will look into the EAN: 128 code.

I am heading down the path of what spikepl is talking about. eg i have a stack of pdf files from a document scanner, with arbitrary names. I want to rename the documents with the information in the bar code so as the name of the file matches the document number on the hard-copy and in my doc management database..
I have spent the day trying out various codes and software and have had the most success with a bit of shareware called BarcodeFiler... I can get it to read Code 39, however this doesn't support lowercase letters. I can't get it to read the code 128 font that i have, but i am aware that there are different types.

Good luck with your project gizmo sounds good