Why ABC fonts are the best you can get
Our considerable experience of printing barcodes has taught us that barcodes produced by regular office computer printers often have to be printed at a larger than ideal size if they are to scan reliably. The reason is the bars and spaces are distorted by inherent limitations of the mechanical printing process.
It is not possible to precisely calculate the exact distortion because it occurs as a result of a number of variables. However Altek have discovered that barcodes tend to exhibit certain characteristic 'error features' as the barcode size is reduced through certain proportional size reductions. Although in general the error becomes proportionally larger as the barcode size is reduced the error accumulation is not a simple function of the size reduction.
Altek have addressed the problem of producing high data density barcodes from two directions. Firstly we have developed a proprietary algorithm to produce a 'barcode sizing factor'. Secondly our intimate knowledge of barcode decoding algorithms tells us which aspects of the barcode dimensions are the most critical and which may be safely relaxed.
These two pieces of information enable us to produce fonts which consistently produce barcodes of a better resolution and quality, fonts which can be printed reliably at smaller sizes and thus achieve a higher data density. The best fonts you can get.
Altek's machine readable TrueType fonts are precisely proportioned engineering components designed to be the crucial link in your data collection applications. Altek fonts are properly hinted and balanced and include a carefully chosen factor to compensate for ink gain and other 'real world' problems that can limit your options when using uncompensated fonts.
Most barcode fonts will produce satisfactory barcodes providing the barcode is printed large enough. ABC barcode fonts are better. ABC fonts are specially hinted and use proprietary information to include a factor designed to compensate for the barwidth errors introduced by the physical printing process. These techniques have been developed over a period exceeding 15 years experience in the barcode printing field. The result is a font that will print reliably at sizes smaller than other fonts using the same paper stock and printing process. This can provide a useful increase in the density of information in the barcode and speed throughput by enhancing the scanner hit rate.