Printing barcode from Indesign - won't scan

[David]

you would think, but, I've seen things happen to barcodes I wouldn't do to somebody's dog...

[mwc]

Save as a 1-bit tiff as soon as you can. Don't Scale more than 80% to 120% (and that may be a little generous)

[t-pat]

reminds me of a funny story I once heard like 3 months ago about a certain print company produced a calendar with qr codes that had a bad URL in them. Guess who is coming out with a new 6 month calendar...

Nobody bothered to scan it and proof the output, it scanned fine, to a URL missing the 2nd / - was like: http:/xxxxxx.xxxx.com

So anyway, in my experience barcodes *can* be really low res as long as they're crisp on the edges and 100% black or at least have plenty of contrast, they can be a spot color, or single process color of C,M, or K. Most important thing is sharp lines with no fuzzies, and not being out of register. So like if it's a 72 dpi bitmap, even though that is low res, it's still possible for it to work due to having square pixels gving a crisp edge. My barcode program (Bytescout BarCode Generator, freeware for the PC) generates 96 dpi RGB files, they work as long as they're handled properly - i.e. made into bitmap tiffs.

As others are suspecting, I am suspecting something happening on one of these outputs. Turn off image optimization/subsampling on export?

[David]

vector is better, no scaling, no rotation...

and the QR code thing is friggen highlarious, not that it's happened to me or anything...

[prepressDog]

sounds like down-sampling to me.... when you make your pdf. Turn off all downsampling..... big file, but should be high rez

[t-pat]

vector is better, no scaling, no rotation...

and the QR code thing is friggen highlarious, not that it's happened to me or anything...

of course vector is better
The qr thing still gives me a laugh. Funny thing is my phone was able to deal with the malformed URL and take it to the right page anyway, unfortunately not everyone's phone could. Not like anyone is bothering to use the damn things anyway, I mean, what print buyer cares enough to bother to scan a qr and go to a page?

[David]

yeah, the whole qr thing is a little wacked.
Why bother using a 1 button speed dial to call someone when you can download an app, snap a pic, connect to a web site, then have it dial the number for you. Automation at it's finest. No fingers were harmed in the filming of this episode.

[prepressDog]

agree vector!! should be a font....

[t-pat]

anyone using new-ish USPS IMB barcodes? those are fun. Trying to get specifications for placement, distance to edge of piece, and clear zone out of the million page pdf the post office supplies is really fun. Only blew 2 mailing jobs (rejected by PO) before finding out some critical info. OOPS!

[beermonster]

barcodes barcodes barcodes - always a good part of the days fun

barcodes over my part of this flat world - there are about 10 or 12 colours they can be in - they seem to be darker colours tho.

i'd avoid tiff's due to anti aliasing

we always read barcodes off proofs first to make sure they were working, then off the plate as well - worked no problems

but almost half the time we made them ourself and my MB3 exported vector illy files so no issues - make em full size and it even makes a white box with the clear zone on. we had varied results when reducing or enlarging so the rule was make em to size

[mines2000]

No! Never had that problem. The thought that InDesign degrades the image in any way is a little ridiculous. Some thing else is going on. How are you laying it out in InDesign?