Low Grade with 203 dpi Thermal Printer

Fine Tune the Module Width

Adapt the module width to the printer dot size (as shown above).

Adjust the Draw Mode

In order to cope with printer driver problems the drawing mode for bar codes can be switched between compatible and quality. If you see distortions in the bar code change the draw mode to compatible. If the bars are wider as they should be (and the gaps are too small) change the draw mode to quality. Depending on the software you are using, the draw mode can be adjusted either in the program options, in the config file or in the object properties.

How to change the draw mode in TFORMer?

Take Care with Optimize Resolution

Depending on the printer vendor and the Windows printer driver the Optimize Resolution feature of TBarCode and TFORMer can either improve or decrease the quality.

Improved Quality:

If the technical specification of the printer indicates a resolution of 203 dpi and the printer driver internally also calculates with 203.0 dpi, the Optimize Resolution feature can adapt the module width exactly to the Pixel raster of the printer. This leads to an increase of the bar code quality.

• Examples for printers behaving like that: SATO printers, TFORMer ZPL compatible printers

Decreased Quality:

If the technical specification of the printer indicates a resolution of 203 dpi - but the printer driver internally calculates with 203.2 dpi (8 dots/mm), the Optimize Resolution feature will fail. When optimizing for 203.0 dpi the module width adapts to a 0.125123 mm printing raster. But because the printer driver uses a dot width of 0.125 mm (203.2 dpi), the bars and gaps are calculated slightly wider as they should be.

• Example for printers behaving like that: Carl Valentin printers, some Zebra printers

Conclusion:

In practice we have seen that it depends on the printer and printer driver if Optimize Resolution should be used or not. If you can see that the narrow bar width is not constant throughout the symbol you should consider to enable/disable the Optimize Resolution feature and then verify if the bar code quality is getting better or worse.

Depending on the software product you use, there are advanced options for dealing with the 8 Dots/mm (203.2 dpi) resolution problem. Please contact our support for more information and recommendations. With TFORMer built-in printer drivers you should always use Optimize Resolution since there is no driver inconsistency.