Category: Barcode Project

Using the Linea Pro to make lists and upload photos

The workflow I’m working on right now is this: staff will be moving barcoded collection objects into moving boxes. The moving boxes have barcodes. We want to scan a moving box and scan everything that goes into the moving box, and wind up with a list which can be imported into PastPerfect and used to set the temporary location of all the objects on the list to the scanned moving box. Separately, we want to be able to take a photo of an object which doesn’t currently have a photo in the database, such that we can associate the photo with the object later.

Unfortunately, we have to use a different app for each task. The Dropbox app can almost handle both, but it really wants to crop photos to find the rectangle of a piece of paper you’re scanning, not take a regular photo. So we’ll be using a paid ($6/year subscription) app called UploadCam for the photo part:

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Quick Bartender Notes

Just a quick note to remind myself later:

When setting up a new label template with the Zebra 17154 label stock, Bartender will correctly set up the page size (2.125″ x 1.125″), but not the margins. It sets the top margin to 0, as if the label were located precisely at the perforation line. It isn’t — you have to set the top margin to .0625″ (same as the left margin, which it does set correctly) in order to align the printed labels with your template.

Also, when using Excel as a data source, you need to match the bit size of Bartender and Office. We had 32-bit Office 2016 installed, and 64-bit Bartender. Bartender couldn’t connect to the Excel file, since it needed the 64-bit OLE DB provider. Uninstalling 32-bit Office and installing the 64-bit version did the trick.

Using a Linea Pro as a keyboard wedge

The first barcode scanner I owned was a CueCat, modified not to require the proprietary software they shipped with. You plugged it into your computer, it presented as a keyboard, and whatever you scanned with it would be typed into whatever application had focus at the time. I don’t know why that mode of operation is called a keyboard “wedge”, but that’s what I know it as.

So we’ve got these expensive iPod barcode sleds, and it seems we ought to be able to use them in the same way you could use that CueCat. Here’s how to do it.
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Barcode Project Introduction

With the New Burke opening in 2019, we’ll be moving everything from the current building into the new one in the next couple of years. Every object in the building will be touched. This is a great opportunity to add barcodes to labels for ease of tracking. If nothing else, hopefully we’ll be able to make the job of moving everything between buildings easier, even if there’s no long term benefit to processes.

Our collections are cataloged in at least five separate database products. There is no way we’re going to find an off the shelf solution which integrates with all of them. For one thing, one of the databases is no longer sold or supported. It has an ODBC connection, so maybe something could integrate with it, but I’m willing to bet that nothing does out of the box. For another, each collection has its own catalog number scheme, and there’s no guarantee that their database has a field for a separate barcode identifier. I need to be able to use freeform text as barcode labels, so that what gets scanned is the object’s native identifier in its home database.

With that in mind, we’re buying some hardware first and will figure out what software to use with it second. Here’s what we’re getting (prices may vary; this is what we paid in March 2017):
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