This was our 7th Philly Code Camp as a sponsor and exhibitor and we are very proud to support this fantastic .NET community. We have many customers in the greater Philadelphia area and it is always a pleasure to meet them at the code camps and dedicated meetings in the following days.

We continued our reporting tour presenting the flow type layout reporting capabilities of TX Text Control X9 and our latest barcode component. We really enjoyed speaking with all users, interested developers and friends. Find below some impressions of our table area at the Philly Code Camp 2013.1:

In order to insert a barcode, an object of type BarcodeFrame and the associated TXBarcodeControl object is required. The BarcodeFrame acts like a container for barcodes in TX Text Control and can be added to the collection of barcodes.

The following code shows how to create these two objects and how to insert them into the current document:

TXTextControl.Barcode.TXBarcodeControl txBarcode1 = 
		new TXTextControl.Barcode.TXBarcodeControl(); 

txBarcode1.BarcodeType = 
		TXTextControl.Barcode.BarcodeType.QRCode; 
txBarcode1.UpperTextLength = 19; 
txBarcode1.Text = "www.textcontrol.com"; 

TXTextControl.DataVisualization.BarcodeFrame bf = 
		new TXTextControl.DataVisualization.BarcodeFrame(txBarcode1); 

textControl1.Barcodes.Add(bf, -1);

The barcode is inserted at the current input position in it's default size:

Understanding the UpperTextLength property

TX Barcode .NET has been designed for word processing purposes. For reporting and other word processing requirements, it is essential that the barcode object doesn't displace other objects or text in the document. Therefore, the size must be fixed and the inner content should be resized instead.

This can be controlled using the UpperTextLength property of TX Barcode .NET. This property defines the maximum number of characters. If the maximum number of characters is encrypted, it fills the complete space of the object.

If less charactes are encrypted, the barcode size doesn't change, but the content is getting smaller. In the above sample, the UpperTextLength property is set to a number of 19 and the encrypted text has exactly 19 characters. The following screenshot shows what happens, if the encryted text is shorter than 19 characters:

But what if the barcode object size gets changed?

The barcode content is scaled proportionally based on the object size and the UpperTextLength.

Consider a typical scenario: A barcode should be added for each item line in a product list. The barcode encrypts the article code of each product in that list. In this case, the article code length stays constant and in most cases, you know the length of the article codes in advance. Then you can set the UpperTextLength property of the barcode to the length of the article codes and the barcode size stays constant.

In case the barcode text length is variable, and you would like to use the AutoSize functionality of TX Barcode .NET, you should set the UpperTextLength property for each instance to the length of the encrypted text before setting the text. This ensures that the barcode content fills the container completely.

string sText = "Flow Type Layout Reporting";

txBarcode1.UpperTextLength = sText.Length;
txBarcode1.Text = sText;

Start today and download fully featured, 30 day trial versions

TX Text Control X9 has been recently released with many new features and improvements.

Limited until the end of May 2013, you can renew all expired Subscriptions for our significantly cheaper post-renewal pricing, which gives you immediate access to version X9. Usually, a full update would be required.

Your advantages are:

• Post-renewal pricing for all licenses
• Access to version X9 and all upcoming versions for the next 12 months
• Access to technical support (e-mail, telephone, chat, forum)

All you need to do is to call us:

United States: +1 704 544 7445

Europe: +49 421 427067 10

Or send us a message.

This offer is only available through the offices of Text Control and not with resellers.

Our reporting tour continues and we will pitch our tent in Philadelphia this weekend. 700 attendees are expected at the Philly Code Camp 2013.1 to learn in more than 60 sessions. We have been supporting this community event for many years as a sponsor and exhibitor.

This year, this is the last stop of our spring Flow Type Layout Reporting Tour and we are presenting the new reporting capabilities of TX Text Control X9.

If you are already registered, stop by our table and learn more about TX Text Control X9. If you are not registered, you can try to get a ticket through the waitlist. The event is sold out.

See you in Philadelphia!

400 enthusiastic developers met to learn from experienced speakers and members of the thriving .NET community in the Carolinas. We continued our flow type layout reporting tour and presented how MS Word based reporting should look like nowadays: With a powerful template designer, full MS Word support, high-performance merging procedures and support for illustrations such as barcodes and charts.

Thanks to all attendees who stopped by our table - it was a pleasure talking to you.

Below are some impressions of our booth area:

Next weekend, you can see us in Philadelphia at the Philly Code Camp 2013.

At our booth, we presented the new features of TX Text Control X9 and our latest product TX Barcode .NET. Additionally, developers learned how MS Word compatible reporting can be easily integrated into .NET based applications using TX Text Control's flow type layout reporting.

Below are some impressions of the code camp and our booth area. Thanks to all attendees who stopped by our booth - it was a lot of fun.

Barcodes of type TXTextControl.Barcode.TXBarcodeControl can be added to a template and merged like merge fields. Each barcode object gets a name that matches a datbase column in your data source.

This tutorial shows how to insert a barcode into a template using the shipped designer TX Text Control Words. TX Text Control X9 (Windows Forms or WPF) and TX Barcode .NET (Windows Forms or WPF) are required for this tutorial.

Creating the template

• Start TX Text Control Words and open the shipped sample database. Choose Load Sample Database from the Select Data Source drop-down button.

  

• Select the table items from the Select Table drop-down button.

  

• Insert a table with 3 columns and 1 row. Set the input position into the first table cell and insert some static text.

  Set the input position into the second table cell and insert the merge field item_no.

  

• After the input position is set into the third cell, choose QRCode from the Illustrations ribbon group of the Insert ribbon tab.

  

• Select the barcode object and choose Object Name from the Object Properties drop-down button that is part of the contextual Object Tools ribbon tab.

  

  In the opened dialog, type in the name of the associated field item_no.

• Right-click the barcode object and choose Format... from the context menu. In the opened dialog box Barcode Layout, open the third tab and type in a longer text into the text box Text in order to set the maximum barcode text length. Type in: This is the maximum text length.

  

  The length of this text defines the maximum text length and the associated barcode size.

• Select the whole table using the right-click context menu Select / Table.

  

  Click on the upper part of the Insert Merge Block button (not the drop-down part of the button) to insert a new block. A dialog is opened to insert the name of the block. Type in items and confirm with OK.

• Click on Preview Merge Fields to see the results.

  

• Save the template using the Internal TX Text Control Unicode Format (*.tx) to your hard-disk.

Merging the template in your application

• Open Visual Studio and create a new Windows Forms application. From the Toolbox, drag and drop an instance of TextControl, MailMerge and TXBarcodeControl to the form.

  

  Select the TXBarcodeControl on the form and delete it again by pressing {DEL}. We only need the references and the license entries in our project.

• Select the MailMerge component in the component tray and find the TextComponent property in the Properties Window. Set the property to the TextControl instance textControl1.

  

• Add a button to the form, double-click the button to open the event handler in order to add the following code:

  string sDBPath = @"C:\Program Files\Text Control GmbH\" +
                   @"TX Text Control 19.0.NET for Windows Forms\Samples\" +
                   @"Demo\x64\sample_db.xml";
  
  DataSet ds = new DataSet();
  ds.ReadXml(sDBPath);
  
  textControl1.Load(@"c:\template.tx",
  	TXTextControl.StreamType.InternalUnicodeFormat);
  	
  mailMerge1.MergeBlocks(ds);
  mailMerge1.Merge(ds.Tables["general"], false);

  You might need to change the path of the Samples folder and the path to your created sample template.

• Compile and start the application and press the button to start the merge process.

Sold out, waiting list closed!

If you visit the dotnet Cologne website today, you will see the above statement. That shows the popularity of this user group conference in Cologne, Germany.

For the third time in a row, Text Control is sponsoring and exhibiting at this well organized event. A very good speaker line-up and high-quality, interesting sessions make this conference one of the best code camps in Germany.

At the Text Control booth, you will learn how to include MS Word compatible reporting into your .NET applications based on TX Text Control. The conference team shows the latest features of X9 and our new barcode component TX Barcode .NET.

See you in Cologne!

We are traveling to Louisville this weekend, the city of the NCAA Basketball Championship winners. The 3 day conference CodePaLOUsa 2013 is packed with sessions, top notch speakers and industry leading sponsors.

We are very proud to be a Silver sponsor of this event in order to exhibit on site. Our Reporting Roadshow starts here in Louisville and we will present our latest version of TX Text Control and our reporting tools.

Keynote speakers are the amazing Richard Campbell and Carl Franklin - you don't want to miss them.

Stop by our booth and learn more about Flow Type Layout Reporting with TX Text Control X9.

See you in Louisville!

We are delighted to announce TX Text Control X9 - best-of-breed word processing components:

Client Components for Word Processing

• TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms X9
• TX Text Control .NET for WPF X9
• TX Text Control ActiveX X9

Server Components for Word Processing

• TX Text Control Server for ASP.NET (incl. Windows Forms) X9
• TX Text Control Server for ASP.NET (incl. WPF) X9
• TX Text Control ActiveX Server X9

Components for 1D and 2D Barcodes

In addition to the above word processing components, we have also released an entirely new series of components to add lightning fast and accurate 1D and 2D barcodes to your applications:

• TX Barcode .NET for Windows Forms 2.0
• TX Barcode .NET for WPF 2.0

Download Updated Trial Versions

If you would like to try out the new features of TX Text Control X9 or TX Barcode .NET, please download one of the updated trial versions. The trial versions are fully featured and valid for 30 days.

Free Technical Support for Subscription Customers

The team of TX Text Control support engineers is waiting to assist you with every aspect of TX Text Control X9 and TX Barcode .NET. Remember, technical support is unlimited and entirely free of charge for subscription customers.