Non-english characters PDF417

PDF417, Data Matrix, Maxicode, QR Code... 2D bar code formats

Non-english characters PDF417

Postby thedave(Legacy Member) on Thu Jan 03, 2008 12:37 pm

Is there a way using any of the Morovia PDF417 related products to encode a non-English character set? Specifically, I'm trying to encode Arabic text into a barcode. I have the Unicode character code chart for Arabic, but am unclear whether or not I can encode using these codes. Does anyone have any information on encoding this type of text into a PDF417 barcode?
thedave(Legacy Member)
 

Re: Non-english characters PDF417

Postby glitch (legacy member) on Thu Jan 03, 2008 2:22 pm

PDF417 standard has no idea about unicode. The standard defines a feature called Global Label Identification (GLI), which is supposed to sort out mixed language issues. However, it is still single-byte based and requires that the application(or the scanner) handles the translation issue.

If you have the control over both read/write, you might consider a straightforward solution - just treating unicode/arabic characters as binary. Your application handles the translation at both sides.
glitch (legacy member)
 

Re: Non-english characters PDF417

Postby thedave(Legacy Member) on Thu Jan 03, 2008 2:38 pm

Thanks for the quick answer! Is there an easy way or a utility to transfer these characters into binary format?
thedave(Legacy Member)
 

Re: Non-english characters PDF417

Postby glitch (legacy member) on Thu Jan 03, 2008 4:07 pm

You do not need any utilities. A unicode value contains two bytes. A value of \ue0c0 is encoded as 0xe0 and 0xc0 in the barcode. Your application takes care of the conversion (back and forth).
glitch (legacy member)
 

Re: Non-english characters PDF417

Postby thedave(Legacy Member) on Thu Jan 03, 2008 4:43 pm

I appreciate the help, but I'm having a hard time following. I basically need to take an Arabic input letter (or string of letters) such as ج and encode them into a barcode. According the the Unicode chart I have, the letter ج is assigned Code 062C. Using the PDF417EncoderGUI, how would I be able to do this? I really appreciate any help you can give
thedave(Legacy Member)
 

Re: Non-english characters PDF417

Postby glitch (legacy member) on Fri Jan 04, 2008 4:36 pm

PDF417 Encoder GUI does not encode Unicode.

What's your plan on the reading side? scanner will not give you Unicode values either. You can only read/write on a single-byte level.
glitch (legacy member)
 


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