TEC-IT News: Barcodes, Labeling, Data Acquisition

TEC-IT releases version 8 of the barcode toolkit TBarCode. Major improvements include

• New bar code types: Aztec Code (2D Symbology), DPD Code, Italian Postal Code 2of5, DAFT Code
• Enhanced security: TBarCode OCX is now "Site Locked". This increases security in relation with Microsoft Internet Explorer and malicious web sites. TEC-IT recommends the update to version 8.
• International character sets: International character encoding (like ñ, Ǻ, Ü) in bar code data is simplified by Unicode support. Custom code pages can be adjusted freely.
• Microsoft^® Word add-in: Improved barcode usage with Microsoft Word and serial letter support.
• PDF417 coding scheme: The user can set Binary Compaction as encoding method.

The new version is available in our download area. Regular customers can order a license update and obtain 40% discount from the normal price.

Security Enhancements in conjunction with Microsoft Internet Explorer

In response to a reported security leak in 7.1 the functions for saving image files were restricted. Up to now no real threat is known but is recommended to install the update. Browsing a malicious web-site with MS-IE and having TBarCode OCX installed could harm the system installation.

As a part of the fix the ActiveX methods SaveImage() and SaveImageEx() now append the filename extension to the filename in each case.

New Barcodes and Check-Digits

• Telepen Numeric
• KIX (Dutch Postal Barcode)
• New GS1 code names (e.g. GS1-128 was formerly named EAN-128)
• Codabar Mod-16 Check Digit

The complete list of changes and bug fixes can be found in the "TBarCode Overview" document installed with the setup.

TEC-IT released the TFORMer version 5.0. This form printing and reporting product suite can be downloaded right away and offers many new features:

New General Features:

• TFORMer 5 is fully compatible with Microsoft Windows^® Vista^®.
• Ready-to-use templates: Additional form layout templates for Industry and Logistics.
• User friendly printing tool: QuickPrint is a new tool for fast manual data entry and instant printing of arbitrary form layouts.
• Simplified formatting: the text element is now able to mix arbitrary fonts, colors and styles within one element.
• Simplified dynamic content: Expressions and data-fields are now embedded directly into text elements with placeholders.
• Reports: Multi-column reporting was simplified.
• Dynamic element size: The font-size as well as the element size can be automatically adapted to the content.
• Barcodes: Additional support for the Reduced Space Symbology (RSS Codes) and the EAN.UCC Composite Symbology (also called GS-1 DataBar and GS-1 Composite Symbology).

New Output Features:

• Output quality: The generated output is identical – even when using different output formats.
• Performance: PDF and PostScript output performance was improved.
• Font handling: Better font handling for PDF and PostScript. Adobe^® Type 1 fonts are supported under Linux and UNIX.
• Image support: Transparency in bitmaps is now supported.

New Developer Features:

• API availability: TFORMer Runtime is now available as .NET 2.0 component (even usable with MONO on Linux), as COM component, as DLL, as shared library (on Linux^®/UNIX^®) and as command-line application.
• Cross-Platform: TFORMer Runtime is available for Microsoft Windows, Linux and UNIX
• Database connectivity: TFORMer now supports ODBC connectivity.

The new setup is based on MSI and runs on systems without as well as with .NET installation. No separate setup for ".NET less" systems necessary!

The MSI setup can be run in "silent mode" for automatic deployment purposes. In addition a problem (memory leak) with TBarCode .NET was fixed in this version.

The new version 7.0.4 of TBarCode/X was released. This version eliminates all ImageMagick^® dependencies and is currently available for HP-UX 11i v2 (Itanium-2) and for AIX 5.x (PPC).

Service Pack 2 of TBarCode/SAPwin V6 is now available for download. This version gives a better support for parallel processing of print jobs by SAPSprint. We recommend all SAP users that they should update to this service release.