Many Microsoft Access databases are designed to manage the products and order workflows of any production based or manufacturing business and with any delivery note or dispatch document using bar codes makes capturing data very easy.

However, your operating system (typically Microsoft Windows) will not have a default bar code font installed but with this free resource courtesy of BarcodesInc, you can now download and install the free fonts that is available across Windows and not just for MS Access.

When you download and install this new font, you add  two new items to the system font list called Free 3 of 9 and Free 3 of 9 Extended. In fact, the latter is the one I have used and I think they provide the same look whichever one you opt for.

Bar Code Font That Can Be Freely Used With Microsoft Access – The Steps

Since we are dealing with a font, all you really need to do is decide which value (a field of your choice) is required to be shown as a bar code font and apply the format to it.

In my example, I want to display the product code (ID) for each item for each order as a way to scan the items for fulfilment.

So my report may look something like:

The above example is of course basic perhaps crude but here you can see the bar code being displayed for the known product code of each item.

The control is a bound field to the product ID with the font format applied – that’s it really!.

So if you know how to design and build Microsoft Access reports (or forms) or any document, then you have succeeded in the first step to automating order processing scanning within your firm.

I like free and this company has endorsed what is normally a chargeable utility (without justification in my opinion) from other suppliers – so hats off to them!

Remember, this can of course be used in other applications so the benefits are clearly there to see. I have used this font in Word and Excel too.

Happy reporting 🙂

Tags: access bar code, access database design, bar code font, downloading bar code fonts, free bar code font for ms access, MS Access