Background Image with Barcode

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MJA-99
Posts: 33
Joined: Fri Apr 08, 2011 2:41 pm

Background Image with Barcode

Post by MJA-99 »

We have governement and state tax forms that have barcodes in the Crystal Reports image serving as background for each printed page. We are trying to replace the 2011 image for each page with 2012 image yet the barcode is fuzzy when printed for replaced background. Questions:

1. Is it best to try and size the background accurately before doing import of .bmp, tiff, or other image file?
2. What is the best picture file format to import to achieve best resolution?
3. Are there any Crystal Reports or SoftPro settings that can affect the barcode and background image?

I seemed to think it was related to the fact that I had to shrink the new background images more than the prior backgrounds in order to get them to look as good as prior year's forms. Please advise.

In addition, TG seemed to have this same problem when doing 2011 forms and resolved it somehow yet the person I am working with does not remember how. If SoftPro has some type of record of this for TG that might shed light on how they last solved the issue, that would be great.

Thanks,

MJA
Lisa Ennis
Posts: 84
Joined: Thu Sep 11, 2008 1:57 pm

Re: Background Image with Barcode

Post by Lisa Ennis »

We edit/alter the images using PaintShop Pro, however, there are probably similiar steps in other graphic programs. Below are the steps that we use for preparing a graphic file for a background in a Crystal Report.

It is best to use a bitmap file as a background image in a ReadyDoc Report. The following steps outline how to convert the image to a size and format that Crystal Reports can handle.
1.Open the image within PaintShop Pro
2.Go to Colors and select Grey Scale
3.Go to Colors and select Decrease Color Depth...
4.Choose 2 bit
5.Click OK
6.Save the image as a bitmap (.bmp) file

With certain images that have text that is already grey, the above procedure may make the text disappear after running the conversion. The following procedure has also proved to get the file size down while keeping the text that is in grey.
1.Open the image within PaintShop Pro
2.Go to Save As...
3.Click on Options...
4.Select the 'Run length encoding' option under Encoding
5.Click OK
6.Save the file with a specified name in the desired location.

Hope this information helps.

Lisa Ennis
Report Developer, SoftPro
Lisa Ennis
Senior Report Developer
SoftPro
MJA-99
Posts: 33
Joined: Fri Apr 08, 2011 2:41 pm

Re: Background Image with Barcode

Post by MJA-99 »

Lisa,

Kurt at TG has tried everything as far as the steps you provided and he still cannot get the image to show in N-288 at the quality level he wants it. I am just doing an Insert -> Picture in Crystal Reports using the various .bmp's he sends to me. Are there any options in Crystal Reports that could be causing problems? I have had to scale the .bmp down a little and crop yet I made sure the scaling was the same for both height and width and the crop should not affect the resolution. I do notice the option to do a Convert to the .bmp and think we tried that yet I just left that to be the same as the .bmp that worked for last year.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

MJA
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