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IDAutomation MSI Font Advantage Package

A license is required for each computer this software is installed on;
this software may only be used according to the License Agreement.
Demo versions of this software may be used for evaluation purposes only

NOTE: IDAutomation provides several Font Tools that are free to use with IDAutomation fonts. The font tools automatically format characters to the barcode font. Implementation tutorials are provided with each font tool. When it is only necessary to create a single barcode, IDAutomation recommends using the Online Font Encoder.

Symbology Information

The MSI Plessey barcode was designed in the 1970s by the Plessey Company in England and has been used primarily in libraries and retail applications. The symbology of the MSI Plessey character set consists of barcode symbols representing the numbers 0-9, the start character and the stop character. In the MSI Plessey font, the parentheses are used for start and stop characters. 

MSI as a barcode font may be difficult to implement without one of IDAutomation's Font Tools, due to the required check digit calculation. If an easier-to-use barcode font is preferred and MSI is not required, consider IDAutomation's Codabar barcode font which does not require check digit characters. IDAutomation also provides many barcode components that may be easier to implement in applications and development environments such as Microsoft® Access, Visual Basic, .NET and Java due to their ability to automatically calculate the checksum and format the bar-code.

Advantage Package Features

Details of the MSI Plessey Font Advantage Package are as follows:

Installation Instructions

NOTICE: When printing the barcode fonts at less than 12 points, a high quality printer with a 600 DPI or greater resolution should be used; it may also be necessary to reduce the print intensity, if you have increased this in the past to a value greater than normal. If you need to print barcodes smaller than 12 points with a 203 DPI printer, it is recommended you print at point sizes 6, or 11.5 to create a high quality barcode. For a 300 DPI printer, it is recommended you print at point sizes 4 or 7.8.

To install the TrueType fonts in Windows: 

Installing the fonts on Macintosh OS X:

  1. Drag or copy and paste the TrueType font file(s) ending in TTF to the Library/Fonts folder.
  2. To activate the fonts, restart the application - some applications may require you to restart the computer.
  3. The font should now be active in the font menu of your application.

To install the TrueType font on the Classic Macintosh (OS 7.1 - OS 9):

  1. Download and install Stuffit Expander on your Macintosh if you do not have an expander utility that can open ZIP files and decode MacBinary files.
  2. Open the ZIP distribution file that contains the fonts by dragging the ZIP file on the Stuffit Expander icon. The font files will be extracted from the ZIP distribution file and will appear in a subfolder of the folder you placed the ZIP file in. Open this subfolder to view the font files.  At this point, you may want to view the documentation supplied with the font files. To do so just drag the file "readme.html" to the Netscape or Internet Explorer icon.
  3. Now we must decode the files from MacBinary format. Drag the font files that you wish to use that end with "mtt" to the Stuffit Expander icon.
  4. Drag the decoded font files to the System - Fonts folder.
  5. Restart the application you wish to use the font with.
  6. The font will be active in the font menu of your application.

PCL Fonts:
To obtain information about installing PCL fonts, please refer to the PCLinfo.html document provided in the PCL folder of the package.

Font installation procedures for other operating systems are provided here

Specifications

Eight different versions of the MSI Plessey barcode fonts are provided to support human readable versions and different height requirements. Fonts with the letter "H" in the font name are "human-readable" versions. The last characters in the MSI Plessey barcode font name determines the height of the barcode, with the shortest being "XS" and the tallest being "L". Because each single font can be printed at various point sizes, there are several height/width combinations that can be produced. (click for font names prior to July, 2003)

Font name of purchased version Font name of eval version* Font height at 12 points*
MSI Plessey Fonts with no text below the barcode:
IDAutomationMSIXS IDAutomationSMSIXS  1/4" (.25") or .6 cm
IDAutomationMSIS IDAutomationSMSIS  1/2" (.5") or 1.2 cm
IDAutomationMSIM IDAutomationSMSIM  1" or 2.5 cm
IDAutomationMSIL IDAutomationSMSIL  1 1/4" (1.25") or 3.1 cm
MSI Plessey Fonts with text below the barcode:
IDAutomationHMSIXS IDAutomationSHMSIXS  1/4" (.25") or .6 cm
IDAutomationHMSIS IDAutomationSHMSIS  1/2" (.5") or 1.2 cm
IDAutomationHMSIM IDAutomationSHMSIM  1" or 2.5 cm
IDAutomationHMSIL IDAutomationSHMSIL  1 1/4" (1.25") or 3.1 cm
* Measurements are approximate and were measured when printed at 12 points which should work for most scanners. Measurements for Human Readable fonts do not include the text below. At 12 points, the X dimension is about 8 mils.

To print at a different height, find the font that has the height closest to what is needed and use this formula to find the point size to print the font at to get that height:
12 * (height wanted) / (height at 12 points) = (point size converted to integer)

For example, using IDAutomationMSIS at a height of .75" tall, print it at 18 points because:
12 * .75 / .5 = 18


IDAutomation also offers the Universal Barcode Font Advantage™, designed to support most linear barcodes as a single font on multiple operating systems and locales. This Universal Font can provide wide to narrow ratios of 2:1, 2.5:1 and 3:1.

MSI Code Check Digit Calculation Example

IDAutomation provides several free font tools, plugins, macros and source code samples that automatically format the data to the barcode fonts. Additionally, IDAutomation's Barcode Components automatically perform all necessary calculations. Therefore, manual check digit calculations are usually not necessary.

To manually calculate the check digit for the MSI barcode:

  1. In this example, the number to be encoded is 173946. Starting from the right side of the number (the units position), collect all of the odd position digits (i.e. digit 1, digit 3, digit 5, etc.) and create a new number leaving the digits in their left to right order. The new number would be 796.
  2. Multiply the new number by 2. (796 x 2 = 1592)
  3. Add the digits of the product created in Step 2. (1 + 5 + 9 + 2 = 17)
  4. Starting from the right side of the number (the units position), collect all of the even position digits (i.e. digit 2, digit 4, digit 6, etc.) and create a new number leaving the digits in their left to right order. The new number would be 134.
  5. Add the digits of the number created in Step 4. (1 + 3 + 4 = 8)
  6. Add the sums obtained in step 3 and 5. (17 + 8 = 25)
  7. Determine the smallest number, when added to the result of Step 6 (25), which will produce a multiple of 10. This value is the remainder obtained when dividing the result of Step 6 (25) by 10. 25 divided by 10 = 2 with a remainder of 5. Therefore, the check digit is 5.

 

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