PDF417 in Microsoft Excel
Examples how to make PDF417 barcodes in Excel without or with minimal programming effort.
Placing PDF417 in Excel Using Office Ribbon Add-in
If you need to insert a single PDF417 barcode, use our Ribbon Add-in. It is just a helper to insert Active Document or ActiveX instances of the barcode generator in easy way. To simply insert a static barcode, choose the Active Document. To make a dynamic PDF417, use ActiveX and link the barcode to a cell.
The picture below shows how to insert a PDF417 barcode:
After inserting, double-click the barcode to edit it's properties. On the General tab, enter a text to encode in the barcode. On the Code specific tab, you can fix the number of rows and columns and select the desired error correction level.
See more information about barcode properties in the PDF417 Customization section.
Placing PDF417 in Excel Using Active Document
An example how to use the Active Document version of StrokeScribe barcode generator to create and customize PDF417 in Excel.
The Active Document is easy to insert but provides less customizations. If you need to create a dynamic barcode by linking the object to a cell, use the ActiveX-based method.
1. On the Insert tab on the Ribbon, click Object.
2. Look for the StrokeScribe Document in the dialog:
3. Right-click the barcode object, select StrokeScribe Control->Properties from the context menu.
- Go to the General tab in the barcode properties dialog;
- Set Alphabet = PDF417;
- Type any text in the Text field.
PDF417 Customization
Switch to the Code-specific 2 tab in the barcode properties dialog.
Here, you can set the error protection level and fix the number of rows/columns. More properties are available in the ActiveX/Class/DLL versions of the barcode generator.
The number of rows must be in the range of [1..90]. The number of data columns must be in the range of [1..30]. There is no need to specify them both at the same time.
If the error protection level is set to -1, the barcode genertor will automatically choose optimal error correction level. The value of 0 forces to use the weakest error correction and produces a small barcode. The value of 8 gives the best data protection but increases the barcode size.
How to Remove a Border Around the Barcode
Use this example from the Excel barcode generation guide.
Compact/truncated PDF417
To create a truncated version of a PDF417 barcode, set the CompactPDF417 property as shown below. This option is available only when creating barcodes programmatically or through the ActiveX properties sheet.
StrokeScribe1.CompactPDF417 = True
Placing PDF417 Barcode in Excel Using ActiveX
The ActiveX-based barcode generation may require some programming but allows to produce PDF417 in bulk quantities.
1. Switch to the Developer tab on the Excel Ribbon and click Insert->More Controls as shown below.
2. Select StrokeScribe Control from the list of available objects and press OK:
3. Click anywhere on the sheet to insert the barcode object.
4. Activate the Design Mode button on the Developer tab.
4.1. Right-click the barcode object, select Properties or activate the Properties button on the Ribbon:
5. Use the property list to customize your barcode. To create a PDF417, modify the following properties:
Customizing the ActiveX-based PDF417
The PDF417ModuleAspectRatio property allows to set the height:width ratio of PDF417 modules. The default vaue is 3 (i.e. 3:1), the higher values are recommended for barcodes with weak error correction levels.
Linking PDF417 to a Cell
To automatically update the barcode when a cell content changes, use the linked cell technique.
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