- Install Microsoft Windows Script Host if necessary (WSH
is an intrinsic part of Windows 98 and 2000).
- Install TAL Barcode ActiveX Plus on your Web Server.
 Download
the files discussed in the example below. This is
a self extracting zip file containing the VBScript code.- Double click on the downloaded file and extract the files.
(By default they are extracted to your temp folder ("C:\Windows\temp" on
Windows 95/98 machines and "C:\temp" on Windows
NT/2000 machines)
- Locate the file test.vbs through Windows Explorer and
double click on it to run the code.
- Open Microsoft Word, go to the INSERT menu and choose
PICTURE, then FROM FILE, type or navigate to "C:\barcode.wmf" and
click OK. You should be rewarded with a barcode. If you
are not, check out the Troubleshooting section
at the end of this document.
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'#################
Test1.vbs ###############
'The following code will generate a barcode with the message "Test1"
and the comment "my comment", then save the barcode as a windows
metafile in the root directory of the C drive.
'declare a variable
to store the barcode object
dim myBarcode
'Assign taltech activex to the myBarocde variable
using the CreateObject method of the Wscript object.
set myBarcode = Wscript.CreateObject("TALBarCd.TALBarCd.1")
'set message
and comment properties of Barcode.
myBarcode.Message = "Test1"
myBarcode.Comment = "my comment"
myBarcode.Symbology = "0"
'save barcode
using SaveBarCode method of ActiveX control:
'Note: with ActiveX Plus version you can also specify .png, .gif, .jpg,
.bmp extentions to create that sort of graphic file.
myBarcode.SaveBarCode "c:\barcode.wmf"
'remove ActiveX
control and barcode info from memory:
set myBarcode=nothing
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Test1 demonstrates how to use the Windows Script Host with
our ActiveX control, but unless you always intend to create
the same barcode this is not a very useful real world example.
To make it a little more interactive we can add input boxes
that prompt the user for information:
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'###########
test2.vbs ##################
'The following code will prompt the user for a message and comment, then
generate and save the barcode as a windows metafile in the root directory
of the C drive.
'declare a variable
to store the barcode object
dim myBarcode
'Assign taltech activex to the myBarocde variable
using the CreateObject method of the Wscript object.
set myBarcode = Wscript.CreateObject("TALBarCd.TALBarCd.1")
'Prompt user
for barcode information: the information they type into the input box
is saved into the variable names "Message$" and "Comment$"
(the "$" indicates that the information will be saved as a text
string, even if they type in numbers.
Message = inputbox("Type in the information you want to convert to
a barcode")
Comment= inputbox("Type in the information you want to include in
the comment")
'set message
and comment properties of Barcode.
myBarcode.Message = Message
myBarcode.Comment = Comment
'save barcode
using SaveBarCode method of ActiveX control:
'Note: with ActiveX Plus version you can also specify .png, .gif, .jpg,
.bmp extentions to create that sort of graphic file.
myBarcode.SaveBarCode "c:\barcode.wmf"
'remove ActiveX
control and barcode info from memory:
set myBarcode=nothing
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This is all well and good for creating a handful of similar
barcodes, but if you try to prompt the user in this fashion
for all the information (message, comment, symbology, rotation,
colors, fonts, etc) it will be very time consuming and frustrating
for the user. One way to fix this is to create a form in
Visual basic and call it as a com object from the VBScript
file. More advanced examples to demonstrate this and other
techniques will be made available soon.
When I double click on a .vbs file an "Open With..." box
is displayed
This would indicate that the Windows Script Host is not
installed.
When I double click on a .vbs file the code appears in
Notepad
This would indicate that the .VBS extention has been associated
with notepad, either because the Windows Script Host is not
installed, or because (perhaps as a security
precaution) the default open method for .VBS files has
been modified to "edit" instead of "run".
Related Links
Introduction to the Windows
Script Host
Introduction to VBScript/VBA
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