Wide-to-Narrow Ratio

Some barcode symbologies like Code39, Interleaved2of5 and Standard2of5 allows you to set the ratio of wide to narrow elements (bar or space) of the barcode. In barcodes, a bar can be the printed black bar or the white space between the bars. So, a barcode is composed of two kinds of bars: black and white.

In such barcodes, some bars are wider than others. For example, in Code39 (sometimes called Code 3 from 9), each character is represented by 9 bars - 3 of which are wider than the others. The ratio of its bar widths can range from 2.2:1 to 3:1. To read the encoded information in a barcode reliably, the decoder must be able to differentiate between wide and narrow bars.

To manage the widths of the bars (both wide and narrow) in a barcode, the wide to narrow ratio is configured. This ration is supported by Aspose.BarCode for JasperReports.

Wide-to-Narrow Ratio Definition

Aspose.BarCode for JasperReports lets developers use the BarCodeAttributes class and its setWideNarrowRatio method to control the ratio of wide to narrow barcode elements. To specify the ratio, pass a float value to the setWideNarrowRatio method.

The same barcode, created with different ratios (in increasing order), is shown below.

Different views of a barcode with different ratios

The wide to narrow ratio for Interleaved2of5 and Standard2of5 is configured in the same way as that of Code39.

The barcode image below was generated by the sample code.

Barcode with a wide-to-narrow ratio of 3.0f

A complete example is given below to demonstrate the use of the wideNarrowRatio property.

Java

 public class MyAttributes

{

    public static BarCodeAttributes Create(String text, String symbology, String wideNarrowRatio)

    {

        BarCodeAttributes b = new BarCodeAttributes();

        b.setCodeText(text);

        b.setSymbology(symbology);

        b.setWideNarrowRatio(Float.parseFloat(wideNarrowRatio));

        return b;

    }

}

JRXML

 <image hAlign="Center">

<reportElement x="0" y="600"  width="500" height="250" />                

<imageExpression class="net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JRRenderable">

   <![CDATA[new com.aspose.barcode.jr.BarCodeRenderer(MyAttributes.Create(

      "12345678", "CODE39EXTENDED", "3.0f")

   )]]>

</imageExpression>

</image>