Handling spaces within a Code 3 of 9 font

Posted by Bill

March 29, 2009

I’ve got nearly 15 years experience working in a help desk environment for a company that manufactures barcode scanners and data collection equipment. However, in all the time I worked there I never ran into this problem. One of my readers had downloaded a free Code 3 of 9 font. He wanted the font to handle spaces. A space between somebody’s first and last name. For example: Select the Code 3 of 9 font in Microsoft Word and then type in your name. This is what it looked like.

See how the space turns out to be a blank area in between the names? There’s not a barcode scanner in the world that could read that barcode :-)

So I did some research online and actually found a free Code 3 of 9 font that handles spaces. Now that same information encoded in a second barcode looks like this.

Now that’s a legal barcode and one that is easily read by any scanner. There is one catch with the font though. In order to encode the space, you need to use the exclamation point (!) and not the space bar. So keep that in mind – if you need a space, type in an exclamation point. I don’t know why that is. Maybe someday i’ll look into it further. But I’m unable to find any free Code 3 of 9 font that can encode a space using the space bar.

The free font I found can be downloaded at Free Code 3 of 9 font download

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