[Solved] Postal Barcodes

[bruceski]

Does Writer support postal bar codes to print on envelopes, similar to MS Word? I'd like to include the ZIP/ZIP+4 bar codes along with the destination address. Also, the longer bar codes that often appear at the top of a business envelope, just to the left of the postage stamp. I believe they are called FIM-A and FIM-C, but I'm not sure. I haven't seen anything in the Field codes, which is where they are accessed from in MS Word. This would be a nice feature. I'm using OOo 3.2.0 on WinXP.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

OpenOffice doesn't currently support barcodes. This Issue is P5 (low priority). Search for barcode fonts to support the barcode format you wish to use.

[gidney]

It would be nice if the priority was raised or if someone (Sun, SUSE) would step up and get something going on this. It has floundered much too long.

[acknak]

Your best way to increase the priority is to register on the QA site and then add your vote (up to two) for the issue.

I have three big questions about this feature:

1) Can OOo support this in a way that works across many different postal services? Something that works only for the USPS (or any other single system) is not good enough.

2) What exactly must OOo do that you can't do yourself with the appropriate barcode font? E.g. OOo does not manage postal codes, you have to do that yourself--so why is it not appropriate to expect users to manage their own barcodes as well?

3) Is it possible for a barcode added by OOo to actually make any difference in the postal service's handling or fees for the mail?

From what I know about bulk mailing, the USPS (at least) has very strict requirements for handling mail at any discount/bulk rate, and simply adding a barcode on your envelope will not meet the requirements. I know next to nothing about it, with the exception that a local organization I work with has done a number of bulk mailings, and every time we looked at it, we decided to sign up with a USPS-certified service because it was just too much hassle to do it ourselves.

So, I'm wondering: what does the "instant barcode" feature of a word processor actually accomplish?

I'd be interested to have an answer to these questions, but it's just for my own curiosity; doing so will not help convince anyone to work on this feature: there are no OOo developers reading this.

[slangist]

there is one very practical result of using US postal barcodes on your personal mail or packages (not bulk): the mail gets there faster because it passes through the postal scanners in one pass without their having to OCR the zip digits and print the barcode on the envelope themselves. in practice, use of preprinted USPS zip barcodes it takes about a full day off the time mail spends in transit. well worth it. will go vote to elevate the project. a US-centric answer, while not ideal, would at least help the majority of OO users...

[drmoque]

2) What exactly must OOo do that you can't do yourself with the appropriate barcode font? E.g. OOo does not manage postal codes, you have to do that yourself--so why is it not appropriate to expect users to manage their own barcodes as well?

You are presuming the average user knows how to convert a character based address to a bar code. I can assure you this presumption is incorrect. I have a PhD in engineering and I have no clue as to how to use the bar code to manually code the address. You are correct that I could probably learn this, but why? I am sure there are more productive uses of my time than that. It is far better to have an extension or macro or some such thing to handle this task.

[LG Lisle]

Why is is this marked "Solved"? I see no solution offered other than "figure it out, and do it yourself." Not much of a solution.

As it is, I suspect that there is no long term solution. It seems the US PS is changing to a new barcode system next year.
http://www.usps.com/mailpro/2008/mayjune/page10.htm This will require a certified program and certification cost is
non trivial http://www.usps.com/ncsc/addressservice ... arcode.htm

The current POSTNET code will be good until May 2010.

[JRT]

While other countries use bar codes, the question is whether they are similar or the same code. If not, there is going to have to be a block of code for each different code and the relevant one should be automatically selected by your choice of country.

What exactly must OOo do that you can't do yourself with the appropriate barcode font?

There is a checksum character in PostNet (USPS) bar code. If using a font, this would have to be computed by the user. There is also the start and stop code. It is also possible to add additional characters to the bar code in addition to the ZIP+4. IIRC, these are the last two digits of the address.

For bulk mailings, the mail-merge would also need to print the barcode. The only difference for obtaining a discount would be to have the mailing list certified. The printing process would be the same.

[BruceAFrank]

This is a long time after the last post, but I see no solution. For years I used WordPerfect and got used to being able to print the zip bar code. I mailed a newsletter to a small group. The bar code sped up the mailing by one to two days. Particularly when mailing to Canada and South America. That was 20 years ago. My son convinced me that I didn't need WP anymore as Open Office was fully capable. I have just discovered it is not in that it cannot print the USPS bar codes. Twenty years later and even the paid version of OOo doesn't handle the bar codes!

I have just discovered that my Windows 7 PRO system will run the copy of WP I still had on the shelf, which is WP Office 2000, which is WP 9. I have had a copy, somewhere, of WP 12 but I was lucky to find ANY version with the activation code still legible on the disc sleeve. Looks like this will likely be my first and last OOo post.

[orionstar]

I posted a solution for US Postal barcodes in OpenOffice Writer running under Windows at
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=73661
which briefly is to install the USPS barcode Truetype Font set
https://www.smarty.com/fonts/postnet/postnet.ttf
into Windows.
Info on the webpage it came from
https://www.smarty.com/archive/how-to-p ... ce-org-3-1
is considered obsolete.