Printing Problems

If you have trouble printing bar codes, we recommend the following remedies.

The message "MEMORY OVERFLOW" appears.

Cause	The Bar Code Printing function is not enabled, resulting in the creation of oversized fonts that use up the memory.
Remedy	Set the BarDIMM menu to 'Enable', and print the data again.

Bar code data is printed as text.

Cause	The BarDIMM menu is set to 'Disable'.
Remedy	Set the BarDIMM menu to 'Enable', and print the data again.

Bar codes are not readable.

Cause 1	The bar code data was not created properly.
Remedy	Make sure to use the correct format for the type of bar code that you want to make.
Cause 2	The bar code reader is not set to read the symbologies you are printing.
Remedy	Make sure that the bar code reader is compatible with the symbologies you are trying to print.

Bar code printing does not stop.

Cause	The character symbol set command has not been sent.
Remedy	Make sure to send the character symbol command, as well as any other font selection sequence after the bar code data (e.g., <Esc>(10U for PC-850).

The layout for the German 25 Postal bar code is not correct.

Cause	The size and text of the bar code are not printed as expected.
Remedy	To print the German 25 Postal bar code in the correct layout, use 124 for the p parameter and 300 for the h parameter. For example, <Esc>(s124p300h24642T.

An error message is displayed with the 2 of 5 Interleaved bar code.

Cause	The number of encoded digits is not even, in multiples of two.
Remedy	If you are using a checksum, you must send an odd number of digits. (The calculated checksum will add one character, making the total data length an even number.)

Narrow bar codes are not readable.

Cause	In all laser printers, thin lines do not have a perfectly clean edge because the toner particle shape is not square. This results in narrow black bars that are wider than the blank spaces of the same width.
Remedy	Fine tune the bar width using the b and s parameters to reduce the horizontal width of the thin black bars, or use the s parameter to widen the thin white bars (blank spaces).

Bar codes on the very top of the page are not printed correctly.

Cause	As bar codes are printed at the current cursor position from the baseline to the top of the page, they may not be printed correctly (i.e., wrong height or caption text in the middle of the bar code).
Remedy	Make sure that you set the cursor in a vertical position, compatible with the bar code height.

The 39 bar code is much longer than it should be.

Cause

The bar code selection sequence was sent before you sent the space characters to position the bar code. As a result, the spaces are separate from the bar code data, and the bar code is much wider than expected (usually across the page).

Remedy

When you position the cursor horizontally using blank spaces to position the bar code in the right place, you must send the bar code selection sequence after sending the space characters to move it horizontally.

If you can only send the bar code selection sequence at the beginning of the line, use the special 39 symbology specifications with no starting spaces (IDs 24670 and 24671). This symbology does not include the starting spaces in the bar code data.

A bar code calling sequence is inserted in a PCL5 macro.

Cause	A bar code calling sequence has been inserted into a PCL5 macro without the proper bar code data.
Remedy	Insert the bar code calling sequence with the bar code data into the PCL macro. If an application needs to send the same bar code multiple times, it can include the calling sequence with the PCL macro, and invoke it in the required number of occurrences.