Does anyone have any barcoding tutorials?

[Humanure]

I have looked over for a decent barcoding tutorial, could someone point me in the direction of a really good one?

[DIzzIE]

Here's an exclusive guide that we used to host on the main site:


Making and Using Barcodes

I've been making and using my own barcodes for about 3 years and in
that time I have saved myself a lot of money. The making of the
barcodes is the easy part, it's the using of the barcodes that needs
the work, so you don't get caught.

First off get yourself a barcode program. Go to one of the software
sites (Tucows for eg) and do a search and download a few till you
find one you like. And do a search on Google. If you find one that
needs a crack or serial, look thru the documents on this site for
help. I've used Barcode Anything for ages but it is not supported
any more and you can't get copies of it. And worse luck I was setting
up a new PC and forgot to copy it over so I'm looking for a new
program too.

I'm not going to tell you how to use the software just how to use
the barcodes. But make sure the software is easy to use, allows you
to size the barcodes up and down and allows you to save them. And of
course it must have all or most of the different types of barcodes
but you will learn all that when you start fiddling with the software.

You need to buy some sheets of stickers for your printer. I buy
A4/Letter sheets with 24 stickers per sheet. And it's a lot easier
if your software recognises your printer and the sheets of stickers
you use otherwise you have to manually setup the layout of the
sticker sheet. Once you have the sticker layout setup do a test
print of 24 copies of a barcode to make sure they all print on the
stickers and not between the stickers.

You might ask 'Why do we need to print 24 stickers'? You don't but
it's nice that the printer and software are setup ok. Normally we
only print 1 barcode at a time so it's best to get software that can
print 1 barcode anywhere on a sheet. What I do is print 1 barcode on
the top left of the sheet. I cut that sticker off the sheet and save
the sheet for the next session. The next time I want a barcode I
feed that same sheet into my printer and tell the software to print
on the second sticker on the top row. If you have trouble feeding
the sheet into your printer, cut the rest of the top row off the
sheet so you now have a new top row and you can print in position 1
again.

A lot depends on the printer you are using. I use a Brother laser
printer and I can't feed in a sheet with 1 sticker missing so I
always cut off 1 row of stickers at a time. I usually only get 3 to 5
barcodes to a sheet but who cares, you are going to save a lot of
money using the barcodes.

I've only used an inkjet printer once and it worked ok but I had to
wait for the ink to dry as the stickers are usually shiny. One other
printer you could use which would make printing extremely easy is a
dedicated label printer. You buy a roll of stickers and it feeds
thru one at a time. I've never used one but it would be the ideal
printer for making barcodes especially seeing as we usually only
print one at a time.

Now to what barcodes do we print. I don't waste my time making
barcodes to save a dollar or two on an item that costs 5 bucks. As
you will see by my method below it takes a lot of time to work out
the number to print and to do the printing so I'm not going to waste
my valuable time to save a few measly bucks. I've got better fuckin'
things to do with my time.

I'm a do-it-yourself freak and I have a large workshop setup so a
lot of my barcodes are used for buying tools etc for my workshop.
The most I've saved in any 1 transaction is about $1100. I got a
slide saw for $199 that was priced at about $1300.

How do we go about selecting the store? I only go to large stores
and only where the checkout chicks/lads are part timers and probably
don't know a lot about the goods being sold. I know who the regular
people are on the checkout and I steer clear of them. It would be
suicide to try and get a slide saw past a regular worker for $199
because he would know that's a ridiculous price. Also some stores are
extremely helpful to us barcoders, they have barcode stations setup
where you can check the price of an item. I love those stores and
I've always thought that I would love to send them a letter thanking
them for being so helpful. This is extremely handy and you know that
your barcode is perfect before you get to the checkout.

Selecting the item. This is extremely important because you cannot
buy just any item. There have been many things I have wanted to buy
but couldn't because it would have increased the chance of me being
caught. You MUST buy an item that looks or sounds like an item that
is much cheaper. You would have to be stupid to buy a DVD recorder
for instance when the barcode says it's a rubbish bin. I heard of a
woman who got caught buying a pile of books. The barcodes said she
was buying pencils. She was obviously a dickhead who just makes it
harder for everyone else. If you do this properly the chance of
being caught are very very slim.

Let's go thru the steps for buying a slidesaw. If you don't know
what it is don't worry but it is a desktop saw that is larger than a
hand held circular saw. In my case I picked a 10" slide saw that was
the same brand as a 10" circular saw. So if a checkout chick
happened to look at her screen (and many don't as I will discuss
later) she will see a Brand X 10" saw which is what it says on the
box only this box also says slide saw. You then write down the
barcode from the cheaper item and the dimensions of the barcode. I
don't usually measure the barcode as that would look stupid in the
store but I normally put a bit of paper beside the barcode and mark
the width and height on it. I normally just measure the actual
barcode but if you can take note of the amount of white space around
the barcode.

Another good item to try on is paint. Buy a 10 litre/4 gallon tin
of paint and only pay for a 2 litre/1 gallon. But don't be stupid
and only pay for the smallest tin of paint you can find. The idea
here is not to buy something for practically nothing, it is to buy
something at the cheapest price you can get away with.

And don't worry if there is text written on the barcode. A barcode
is a numerical description of a product but sometimes they also print
a description of the item on the barcode. You don't need to
duplicate this description, just ignore it.

Now go home and print the barcode. You will probably print a few
until you get it to be the same size as the one at the store. If you
know the exact size of the barcode including the white space, then
cut the sticker to size now otherwise you will need to take a pair of
scissors to the store with you.

Go to the store and select your item and put it in a trolley (if
need be). Go to a quiet part of the store and peel off the backing of
your sticker and carefully stick it over the original sticker making
sure that none of the original sticker is showing. And look up in
the fuckin' air first and make sure you are not standing in front of
a camera.

Now head to the checkout and pick your mark. I tend to select young
girls if I'm in a hardware store because the odds are they will know
next to nothing about what you are buying. And if possible buy a few
other items. I like stores that use hand scanners because the
checker just makes sure that she/he gets a beep and then goes onto
the next item. If they happen to glance at the screen they will
notice that the brand is the same as the item they scanned and
hopefully the description is similar. And I always talk to the
checkout check while she is scanning because then she is not
concentrating 100% on her job. Talk about the weather, her hair, her
dress, the loudmouth wanker in the next queue, how has her day been,
whatever, just distract her a bit. I'm happily married but if you're
on the make, ask her for a root, that will certainly take her mind
off her job but you may get hit over the head with a scanner.

Now stroll out the door and try not to laugh too much?

You have to pick the right stores for this. Don't try this on in a
white goods store. If you try to buy a top of the line refrigerator,
the odds are that the salesmen will know the approximate price. Pick
the right stores and you can save yourself a lot of money.

There are many products you can use this procedure for. Ideal
products are ones that have containers of varying sizes. I've used
it for buying vitamins. I bought a very large jar of Vitamin E
capsules which cost $30+. I used the barcode from a small jar of some
other vitamin that was on special for $7.99. It was a different
vitamin but it was the same brand.

Just use your common sense when selecting products because you have
to remember that this is the same as stealing.

Cheers
Barcode


Also, here's (http://www.dizzy.ws/Barcode.Tricks.pdf) an article entitled 'Barcode Tricks' by XlogicX, as appearing in 2600 Magazine, Vol. 21 No. 1 (Spring 2004), which you may find useful.

Finally, if you look through the Heaps o' Scams (http://www.dizzy.ws/Bad.Ideas.AIO.v2.pdf) compendiums, there are some barcoding tips and hints sprinkled in there as well (try pages 14, 16, 136, and 534 for starters).

Hope these help :smile:.

[DominoKett]

sounds good but theres a major part im not getting. so he says to use a barcode software to make the barcode. well those things just generate random barcodes. its not like you can type in a product for a specific store and it will make that barcode for you. so like with the example of the saw. how was he able to make the exact barcode of the cheaper saw

[RoundElephant]

isnt he telling us to write down the numbers on the products barcode then use those to generate it.

[iceman69]

camera phone
take pic of barcode of similar but cheaper product then the tageted item
crop pic and resize print pic on sticker
stick it and check out

that is a easy non complicated method.

then numbers are the important part, The lines are numbers themselves.
go online get a free barcode program

type in the products barcode numbers and print

[TheRepressed]

edit

[crazy white guy]

1 mega pixel will do it but 2meg is all you need. Anything over than it just because its easier to use and you'll never get any mistakes.

I've managed to get a clear picture with a 640 x 480 picture but it had to be less than three inches away to be able to read the numbers in anything other than perfect light.