Design a barcode that is appropriate for
its intended use.
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Think about how the users will submit the
form to you or your processing organization. Make sure the barcode
is designed to survive the printing, mailing in, faxing, and scanning
processes.
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Use collections
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Use Collections in paper forms barcodes
instead of applying the barcode to the entire form. Collections
ensure that you include the relevant fields in the barcode.
Note: If you add a List Box object with the Allow Multiple
Selection option selected on the Field tab to a paper forms barcode
collection, you must also select the Enforce Strict Scoping Rules
in JavaScript option on the Defaults tab in the Form Properties
dialog. Otherwise, any values that a form filler selects in the
List Box object may not encode properly in the paper forms barcode.
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The Paper forms barcode collection name
must be different from the object collection name.
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Make sure that the paper forms barcode name
is different from the object name. Otherwise, the paper forms barcode
will not update at the run time.
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Paper forms barcodes in subforms with default
names may cause unexpected results.
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When you include a paper forms barcodes
in multiple unnamed subforms, you may get unexpected results. Rename
the subforms instead of using the default name.
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Consider the placement of the barcode on
the form design.
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You can place a paper forms barcode anywhere
on the form design. Always place the barcode where it can be seen
and scanned easily. Keep barcodes at least a half-inch from the
edge of the paper to ensure that they are included when the form
is printed.
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Size a barcode for the amount of data to
be captured.
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There is a limit to the amount of data that
can be encoded into a paper forms barcode. The size of the barcode
also affects the amount of data that it can encode. If the barcode
is too small to hold the user-supplied data, a red marker appears
on the upper-right corner of the barcode, with a message informing
you that the data set to be encoded is too large for the barcode
to contain. You should perform one of these steps:
Resize the barcode, making it bigger to accommodate more
data.
Reduce the data set by changing the default data size for
some form objects, such as text fields. For example, the default
limit length of each text field is 255. However, if a text field
will only contain a first name, last name, or even a full name,
the limit could be reduced to 20 or 50 characters, potentially solving
the barcode size issue.
Using extended characters and both uppercase and lowercase
letters increases the size of the data. Write a script to restrict
data to alphanumeric characters and uppercase letters.
If field names are included in the data, use shorter object
names.
Use form object collections.
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Delimiter must not be part of textual content.
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When you choose the delimited format for
a paper forms barcode, make sure that the delimiter is not a part
of your form's textual contents. For instance, if you choose Tab
as the delimiter, the contents of the form fields you are encoding
cannot contain tabs because it will confuse the decoder. To avoid
this confusion and to ensure that the encoder will work correctly,
if the character originally chosen to be the delimiter becomes a
part of the contents, you can choose a different character (such
as a pipe or a comma) as the delimiter instead.
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Do not embed data for image fields.
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Paper forms barcodes cannot hold enough
data to embed data for images. If you have an image field object
on the form, either do not select the Embed Image Data option for
the image field object or exclude the object from the barcode data.
If the image field is included in the barcode data, the barcode
displays a warning that the data length cannot be calculated.
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Do not rotate Paper Forms barcodes.
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Rotating a paper forms barcode will cause
it to become clipped when the form is filled in Acrobat and Adobe
Reader versions less than 8.0.
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Test the form before distributing it.
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It is critical that you test your completed
form in Adobe Reader as well as in Acrobat. Most users of these
types of forms will only have Adobe Reader installed.
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Determine what version of Adobe Reader users
will utilize to fill the form and ensure the correct right is applied
to form.
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When a form that contains one or more Paper
Forms Barcode objects is opened in Adobe Reader 8.1 or later, the
Paper Forms Barcode objects appear greyed-out when a user begins
to fill the form, unless the 2DBarcode right has been applied to
the form using Reader Extensions.
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Ensure that users fill the form electronically
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Make it clear to your users that they must
fill the form electronically. If they print the form and then fill
it, the paper forms barcode cannot encode any of the user-supplied
data.
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Test the maximum capacity of the paper forms
barcode
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You must test your forms in both Adobe Reader
and in Acrobat to ensure that the capacity of each barcode is large
enough to capture all of the required data. This can be done by
filling each field with realistic entries of maximum length and
ensuring that the barcode does not turn gray. You need to use Adobe
Reader to test documents that have Reader Extensions barcode usage rights
applied to them.
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