Barcodes are not only used in reports or forms. A typical application is the display of a specific cell value as a barcode in a DataGridView. One of our shipped samples show how to use TX Barcode .NET to implement a custom DataGridViewBarcodeCell.

A DataGridView cell has two modes: An edit mode that is used when the user types in the value for the cell and a display mode that shows an image representation of the barcode.

Open the sample project in Visual Studio and start the application. A form with a DataGridView is shown. The column Barcode column shows barcode images.

Implementing a custom DataGridViewBarcodeCell

Use the mouse and click into one of the shown barcodes to select the cell. Click again to activate the edit mode of the custom cell. A text box is used as the editor in this case. Change the value to another numeric value such as "12345" and press return.

Implementing a custom DataGridViewBarcodeCell

The barcode is updated, the custom cell switches to the display mode and shows the updated image representation.

Implementing a custom DataGridViewBarcodeCell

In order to create the image representation, TX Barcode .NET provides a method that paints the actual barcode into a Graphics object. The following code shows how to use this method:

Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap(cellSize.Width, cellSize.Height);
ctl.BackColor = DataGridView.DefaultCellStyle.SelectionBackColor;
ctl.ForeColor = DataGridView.DefaultCellStyle.SelectionForeColor;

Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(bmp);
ctl.PrintPaint(g, new Rectangle(0, 0, bmp.Width, bmp.Height));

Test this and many other samples and download the trial version today.