BarTender Label & RFID Software

BarTender Box With hundreds of thousands of users in more than 150 countries, BarTender is the world’s leading design and print software for labels, barcodes, cards and RFID tags. Running stand-alone or integrated with just about any other program, BarTender is the perfect solution for almost any on-demand printing or marking application, including: labels, print and apply, direct marking on parts and packaging, encoding smart cards, sign production, and much more.

Powerful companion applications even manage system security, network print functions, document publishing, print job logging, and more. With four editions delivering a remarkable range of features, there’s a BarTender to satisfy every need and budget.

Screenshots

Features

Easy to Learn, Easy to Use
With BarTender, a few quick mouse motions are all it takes to combine bar codes, text and graphics into professional quality labels. You can even encode RFID tags. And moving and resizing objects on your labels is as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Exceptional Design Flexibility
BarTender gives you total control over your label’s appearance, including the type and size of text, bar codes and graphics. Place objects exactly where you want them and control rotation as precisely as 1/10th of a degree. You’re limited only by your imagination.

Latest Windows Technology
Strict adherence to Microsoft’s official user-interface guidelines, means if you’ve used just one other Windows program you’re ready to start designing labels.

High Precision On-Screen Display
BarTender’s design mode gives you an extraordinarily accurate “real-time” view of your label. There is also a Print Preview mode that even reads your external data sources, so it can display exactly how your labels are going to look before you print them. That means you can design more quickly without wasting labels.

Designer Typefaces, Even on Thermal Printers
BarTender and Seagull’s printer drivers offer an extraordinary variety of font capabilities. Use printer fonts for maximum speed and Windows fonts for the most flexible styling. Many printer drivers now even support font downloading for an optimum combination of font variety and printing performance.

“Instant” Bar Codes
BarTender’s toolbox gives you instant access to an extensive set of predefined bar code components. “Drag and drop” bar codes into your label designs using a single, quick mouse motion. Use our predefined components “as is” or customize as desired.

Rich Text with Data Sourcing
“Rich Text” allows individual text objects to contain multiple typefaces (Times, Arial, etc.) and styles (bold, italic, etc.). BarTender raises the power of rich text to a whole new level by allowing you to source the different parts of a rich text object with external data fields. For example, you might use one font style for some static text and use other styles for some of you changing text.

Import and Export Graphics
It’s easy to add company logos and pictures of products. BarTender supports most major graphic formats. You can also export bar codes for use in other software packages.

Advanced, Customizable Serialization
Generate anything from the simplest serial numbers to the most advanced, totally custom serialization sequences. Increment or decrement by any interval and specify any rollover threshold and restart value. Choose from numeric, alpha, or a variety of predefined alphanumeric character sets. Even specify your own totally custom sequences.

Compliance Labels and Ready-to-Print Formats
Sometimes a customer or outside agency demands a particular label design. “Compliance” with such external specifications can be challenging, especially if it requires something your label software just can’t do. Maybe one of our numerous predesigned label formats is all you need. We’ve familiarized ourselves with numerous commonly used standards in order to build BarTender into the most full-featured compliance-labeling tool available. Whether you’re using one of our many ready-to-print formats, or designing labels from scratch, BarTender has the power and flexibility you need for thousands of compliance label standards.

Industrial Symbol Libraries
Need one or more special graphics or symbols on your labels? BarTender gives you easy access to hundreds of high-quality, scalable symbols, saving you the trouble of researching and drawing them yourself. Choose from categories such as electrical, hazardous material, packaging, and more.

Custom Data-Entry Forms
Sometimes you won’t know some of your label data until the last second, for example when a product comes off an assembly line or is about to ship. Fortunately, BarTender’s customizable, pop-up “Prompt Dialogs” make it easy to enter data at print time. Since designing prompt dialogs is almost exactly like designing labels, they are easy to set up. You can even lock BarTender into continuous prompt mode, allowing you to automatically launch print job after print job by simply filling in the empty data fields.

Password Protection
Sometimes it’s critical to ensure that your users can’t modify your label designs. Whether the change is accidental, well intentioned, or malicious, even the slightest repositioning of bar codes or text objects can take a label out of compliance. Fortunately, Password Protection makes it easy to lock BarTender into a “print only” mode that prevents unauthorized alteration of the label.

Add Your Own Features Using Visual Basic Script
Special data-processing requirements sometimes arise, such as wanting to conditionally combine certain fields or use only part of a field. You may even want to evaluate an equation. BarTender’s Visual Basic “Scripting Assistant” helps even non-programmers meet a wide variety of advanced data-processing and other custom challenges.

BarTender can accept label data from a truly remarkable variety of sources:

Keyboard data entered in advance or at print time.
Automatically serialized data strings.
Automatic time and date values.
Four different text file formats.
ODBC and OLE-DB data sources, including most databases and spreadsheets. (Advanced data reporting capabilities include SQL Select statements and Query by Example.)
Direct input from SAP IDocs.
Oracle and other XML sources.

Editions Comparison

Features and Editions Comparison Chart

Color Code:
Enterprise Print Server	RFID Enterprise	Enterprise	Professional	Basic

EDITIONS:	EP	RE	E	P	B
GENERAL
Licensed based on the number of printers used	•	•	•
Licensed based on the number of PCs used				•	•
Free phone and e-mail technical support for properly-registered users	•	•	•	•	•
HTML-based context-sensitive help	•	•	•	•	•
User interface translated into 20+ languages	•	•	•	•	•
LABEL DESIGN
True WYSIWYG label design	•	•	•	•	•
“New Label” wizard ensures proper label setup and optimizes performance	•	•	•	•	•
Drag and drop creation of all objects, including lines, boxes, ellipses, and graphic images	•	•	•	•	•
Unlimited undo / redo command	•	•	•	•	•
Resize and reposition objects using a choice of methods: mouse, arrow keys, typed in values	•	•	•	•	•
Functions for automatic alignment of multiple objects	•	•	•	•	•
One-tenth degree rotation of lines, boxes, text, and graphics	•	•	•	•	•
“Move to Front” and “Send to Back”	•	•	•	•	•
Group and Ungroup multiple objects	•	•	•	•	•
Export bar codes and labels for use in other programs	•	•	•	•
Full color support (including text backgrounds and shape fills)	•	•	•	•	•
Customizable print-time prompts for keyboard and scanner data	•	•	•	•	•
Enhance print-time prompts with lines, boxes, custom text, and multiple choice list boxes	•	•	•	•	•
Customizable library of reusable components	•	•	•	•	•
Library of “ready-to-print” label formats	•	•	•	•	•
Thumbnail previews of saved label formats, viewable both in BarTender and Windows explorer	•	•	•	•	•
Metric and US measurements	•	•	•	•	•
Password protection	•	•	•	•
LABEL STOCK
Any label size	•	•	•	•	•
Any number of label rows and columns per sheet	•	•	•	•	•
Automatic computation of label size from number of rows and columns	•	•	•	•	•
Database of thousands of name brand label sizes	•	•	•	•	•
Rectangular label outline	•	•	•	•	•
Circular and elliptical label outline	•	•	•	•
TEXT
Versatile font support: TrueType, Adobe, PostScript, downloadable, and built-in printer fonts	•	•	•	•	•
On-screen text editing and sizing	•	•	•	•	•
Rich text formatting	•	•	•	•
Stretch text horizontally or vertically	•	•	•	•	•
Automatic on-the-fly resizing of text to fit within predefined height and width	•	•	•	•
Basic paragraph support: aligning and spacing	•	•	•	•	•
Advanced paragraph support: justifying and indenting	•	•	•	•
Arc and circular text	•	•	•	•
User-definable tab stops	•	•	•	•
White-on-black text printing (specified with a single mouse click)	•	•	•	•	•
BAR CODES
Numerous 1 and 2 dimensional symbologies	•	•	•	•	•
Extensive library of industry-standard bar code formats	•	•	•	•	•
Option to display start / stop characters	•	•	•	•	•
Variable and unlimited width and height	•	•	•	•	•
Minimum width limited only by printer resolution	•	•	•	•	•
GS1 (formerly UCC/EAN) Application Identifier setup wizard	•	•	•	•	•
Automatic check digit capability	•	•	•	•	•
Sequentially numbered bar codes	•	•	•	•	•
Place “human readable” text anywhere in relation to bar codes	•	•	•	•	•
Customizable “human readable” character template	•	•	•	•	•
Independently suppress or display characters from different sub-fields	•	•	•	•
GRAPHICS, IMAGES AND SYMBOLS
Draw lines, circles, ellipses, rectangles, rounded rectangles and filled rectangles	•	•	•	•	•
Import more than 70 graphic formats, including BMP, DCX, DIB, DXF, EPS, GIF, IMG, JPG, PCX, PNG, TGA, TIF, WMF, WPG, and more	•	•	•	•	•
Industry-specific graphic symbol font libraries	•	•	•	•	•
Specify background images and colors to appear “behind” label designs	•	•	•	•	•
PRINTING
Over 1,700 industrial label printers supported	•	•	•	•	•
True Windows drivers, can be used by other programs	•	•	•	•	•
Seagull drivers with status monitor display printer status in the standard Windows spooler	•	•	•	•	•
Export printer code templates to XML enabled printers	•	•	•
Advanced on-screen print preview	•	•	•	•	•
Advanced cutter control	•	•	•	•
Set starting position on pages of partially used labels	•	•	•	•	•
Supports printer-based bar codes, serial numbers, time, date, and copies	•	•	•	•	•
Speed optimization reuses repeating data instead of resending it	•	•	•	•	•
Local and network printer support	•	•	•	•	•
Label copy count controllable from keyboard and database	•	•	•	•
SERIALIZATION
Basic serialization (increment, numeric base 10)	•	•	•	•	•
Numeric, alphabetic, and alphanumeric increment / decrement by any interval	•	•	•	•	•
Base 36 and custom base serialization	•	•	•	•
Separate rollover / rollunder and value reset options	•	•	•	•	•
Preserve or expand field length when rolling over	•	•	•	•	•
DATABASE OPTIONS
Microsoft OLE DB and ODBC support, including drivers for: Access, AS/400, Btrieve, dBase, Excel, FoxPro, Informix, Interbase, Linux, MySQL, Oracle, Paradox, Pervasive.SQL, PostgreSQL, Progress, SQL Server, Sybase, and more	•	•	•	•
Read Excel files	•	•	•	•
Read ASCII & Unicode text files (quote & comma, fixed width, and user-defined delimitation)	•	•	•	•
SAP IDocs and Oracle XML label requests	•	•	•
Drag and drop data linking	•	•	•	•
Versatile multiple-table data access	•	•	•	•
Import variable graphics from databases	•	•	•	•
Data query wizard and custom SQL assistant	•	•	•	•
Individual record-picking at print time	•	•	•	•
DATA PROCESSING
Full-system unicode support (field names, files, servers, printers, etc.)	•	•	•	•	•
Visual Basic scripting for custom data processing	•	•	•	•
User-definable min and max field lengths	•	•	•	•	•
Use and/or exclude select portions of database fields	•	•	•	•
Customizable data-entry filters and error checking	•	•	•	•
Custom configure the handling of individual messages and alerts	•	•	•
Multiple sub-fields concatenated per label object	•	•	•	•
Source data with keyboard, time and date (from PC or printer)	•	•	•	•	•
Easy entry of special and “unprintable” control characters	•	•	•	•	•
Shareable data fields	•	•	•	•
STANDARD INTEGRATION
Can be run as “background” application	•	•	•
Control from other programs using ActiveX	•	•	•
Control from other programs using command lines	•	•	•
Specify label formats and data sources from within other programs	•	•	•
Automated printer selection	•	•	•
Logs errors and events to a file	•	•	•	•
Log BarTender print job details to a database	♦	◊	◊
Log application errors and events to a database	♦	◊	◊
Custom error, event and status e-mails	•	•	•
“Commander” integration utility (runs as an application or 2000/2003/XP service):	•	•	•
• Waits for data files, e-mails, or TCP/IP communication “triggers” and then initiates print jobs	•	•	•
• Logs errors and events to a file or database	•	•	•
• Transmits event notification via e-mail or SMS text message	•	•	•
Generate and export printer code templates for SAPscript-ITF, Oracle XML and more	•	•	•
HIGH-SECURITY AUDIT COMPLIANCE
Include label images when logging BarTender print jobs	•
Inspect logs and confirm label jobs using History Explorer	♦	◊	◊
SHARED, CENTRALIZED PRINT SERVICES
Optimized to handle high-volume printing requests using a single copy of BarTender running on a server	•
Easy print job control from any operating system that can run a web browser	•
ADVANCED INTEGRATION
SAP Certified for AII integration	•
Oracle XML integration using a TCP/IP socket	•
Enhanced version of Commander supports TCP/IP triggers and data transmission	•
Commander optimized to receive, launch, and monitor new print jobs without waiting for existing jobs to finish	•
Automated conversion of different XML formats using XSL style sheets	•
BarTender XML Command Scripts speed up automation and simplify remote control	•
Detailed print job status available to other programs using ActiveX	•
.NET SDK to control one BarTender at a time. (All SDKs provide C# & VB.NET.)	•	•	•
.NET SDK to control multiple instances of BarTender at once	•
.NET SDK to author web printing applications	•
RFID SUPPORT
Encode EPC Gen2, EPC Class 1, ISO 18000-6b, ISO 15693, Tag-It, I-CODE, TagSys, My-d, and Picotag tag types	•	•
Supports DoD, Wal-Mart, and other EPC data formats, including SGTIN, SSCC, GIAI, GID, GRAI, SGLN	•	•
Support for many single and double-byte codepages, including Asian languages, UTF-8 and UTF-16	•	•
Able to duplicate RFID data in text and bar code form	•	•
Supports optional write protection	•	•
Segment and Start Block support, including writing to multiple blocks	•	•
Able to configure printer’s RFID options (e.g., Transponder Offset and Maximum Retries)	•	•
Display antenna, chip, and substrate on label. Select predefined or specify custom antenna bitmaps	•	•
ENTERPRISE PRINT MANAGEMENT
Reprint function lets you search for and replace lost and damaged labels	♦	◊	◊
Configure security, spooler and other selected driver settings for multiple printers at once	•	•	•
In one window, see status of all Windows print jobs for all locally accessible printers	•	•	•
In one window, see status of every Windows print job on the network	•
Log printer events for all Windows print jobs	•
Specify custom alerts for printer events and low inventory levels	•
Track printer media usage and inventory of printer parts	•