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Using a Web Service to Generate Barcodes

September 4, 2013 by Anders Monsen 4 Comments

Recently I came across a web service over at ProgammableWeb that generates barcodes. This might be useful if you scan barcodes, and want an alternate method to create barcodes in your FileMaker solution.

The web service, Barcodes4.me, is a RESTful service and requires no API or fee. It supports a handful of barcodes types, as well as QR codes, and requires a simple URL call. Using FileMaker 12’s Insert from URL you can send a query to this web services and insert a barcode image into a container field.

Given that this is a free service, there is no guarantee how long it will remain available or a free service. The types of barcodes available also are limited. This is still a good option to keep in mind when developing and testing a mobile solution with barcodes. I have included a small demo file to show this in action.

WebServicesDEMO.fmp12

Filed Under: Barcodes Tagged With: Demo file, FileMaker Go, Insert From URL, Web service

Comments

  1. Jason Young says

    September 5, 2013 at 7:26 am

    Hey Anders,
    Very cool. You should check out http://labs.foxtailtech.com/#/barcode-api that Angelo Luchi set up. He’s doing something similar and has a FileMaker API you can download.
    Cheers!

    Reply
    • Anders Monsen says

      September 5, 2013 at 9:16 am

      Hey Jason, that’s an awesome API. Well documented, many more types of barcodes, FileMaker example. Wow! Thanks for the link.
      Anders

      Reply
  2. Chaim Bacon says

    September 5, 2013 at 4:23 pm

    Hi Anders,

    If it’s OK, can I please also mention a very inexpensive wide range of web services – http://www.feedzon.com – designed especially for FileMaker, one of which is also for generating barcodes (25 formats supported). All feedzon services come with beautiful sample files ready to run in FileMaker Go or Pro.

    Some of the http://www.feedzon.com services include:

    – Barcode generation
    – Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for documents
    – Optical Character Recognition Business Card Scanner for FM Go
    – SMS (sending & receiving)
    – Multilingual translation
    – Text to speech conversion
    – Twitter integration (Facebook & LinkedIn coming soon)
    – Address lookup (UK)
    – FTP services

    Services in development:

    – Address lookup (US)
    – Facebook & LinkedIn integration
    – Salesforce integration
    – Google Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, Analytics & Docs integration
    – Two factor authentication
    – Barcode scanning
    – Image manipulation (including watermarking)
    – Data geomapping
    – Beautiful reports (not boring charts)
    – Payment processing & shopping cart
    – Email (sending & receiving HTML with analytics)
    – Much more

    Users simply buy a pack of credits and can use any of the services. Prices as low as 1 pence (UK) or 1.5 cents (US) per credit.

    Anyone interested should create an account on http://www.feedzon.com (even if you don’t buy any credits now) which will add you to our newsletter list, so we’ll keep you informed as new services come online.

    Finally, you mentioned a good point above about how long free services will remain available. feedzon is a very cheap Pay as You Go service, but this brings the peace of mind that we’ll be around for a long time!

    Thanks,

    Chaim

    Reply
  3. Anders Monsen says

    October 4, 2013 at 9:33 am

    Hey Chaim, thanks for mentioning feedzon’s services. The list of current services looks very useful!

    Best,
    Anders

    Reply

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