Bar Code for Silverlight

Actipro Bar Code vs. "Fontware"

There are many reasons to use Actipro Bar Code instead of bar code fonts (a.k.a. fontware) in your applications. Here's ten of them:

1. Bar code fonts usually require licensing

While you may be able to scour the web to find a royalty-free implementation of a bar code font for a simple bar code symbology such as Code 39, most font creators charge licensing fees even in excess of $100 for the use of a single bar code font. Beware because even some "free" bar code fonts don't permit distribution with an application. With Actipro Bar Code, you get a large number of bar code symbology implementations at a low price and royalty-free distribution.

2. Bar code fonts require registration in the Windows Fonts folder

When you distribute a bar code font with your application, you must update your installer to register the font with the target system's Windows Fonts folder, which is not a straightforward process. Also if the end user removes the font manually from the Fonts folder, the bar codes in your application are suddenly broken. With Actipro Bar Code, there is no font registration necessary since our product natively vector draws each bar code.

3. Actipro Bar Code supports 2D symbologies

Actipro Bar Code has support for 2D symbologies like QR Code, whereas bar code fonts cannot produce 2D bar codes.

4. Actipro Bar Code can render the character value under the bar code lines

Actipro Bar Code can do this and even provides a number of display style options for the displayed value, including the ability to have the value's characters intrude into the bars such as in UPC-A.

5. Actipro Bar Code can alter the height of the bar code lines

Bar code fonts only support a fixed height of lines, whereas Actipro Bar Code allows you via a property setting to exactly specify a desired line height.

6. Actipro Bar Code auto-computes checksums

A font can't do math. A major benefit of using Actipro Bar Code is that each symbology automatically computes any appropriate checksum values for you so there is no math that needs to be done manually by you.

7. Actipro Bar Code supports bar width ratios

In some symbologies such as Code 39, you are permitted to have dark lines be anywhere from two to three times as wide as narrow lines. Actipro Bar Code provides an option for controlling this. Bar code fonts are always fixed bar widths.

8. Actipro Bar Code is written in Silverlight, for Silverlight developers

Actipro Bar Code is written in 100% C# and is designed for use with any Silverlight application. All Actipro Bar Code drawing is done in vectors, so it cleanly scales to any size and always looks crisp. The bar code itself is displayed by a BarCode control.

9. Actipro Bar Code supports borders and a caption

Actipro Bar Code can support the rendering of a border around the bar code (with total control over the roundness of the corners), along with an optional caption that is rendered above the bar code. You can't do this with bar code fonts.

10. Actipro Bar Code supports scaling and rotation

Bar codes produced by Actipro Bar Code can be resized or rotated however you like via the use of scale and rotation transforms.