Using International Characters in BarTender

Using International

Characters in BarTender

How to Read Data and Print Characters

from Almost Every Language and

Writing System in the World

Supports the following BarTender software versions:

BarTender 2016, BarTender 2019

WHITEPAPER

Contents

Overview 3

BarTender's Unicode Support 3

Understanding International Character Support 4

Fonts 4

Scripts 4

Asian Characters 5

Writing Systems that Read Right to Left 5

Entering International Text Into Text Objects 7

Using the Insert Symbols or Special Characters Dialog 7

Using the Windows Character Map 7

Using the Keyboard 8

Reading International Characters from a Database 9

Encoding International Characters in Barcodes 10

Using Unicode Data 10

ECI Protocol 11

Formatting According to Locale 12

About Data Types 12

Example 12

Appendix A: Languages, Encodings and Scripts 13

Appendix B: Configuring Windows 14

Installing Windows Input Support for International Languages 14

Windows Support for Additional Display Languages 15

Related Documentation 16

Overview

With the built-in international character support that BarTender provides, you can add international

characters to your design and encode them into barcodes or RFID tags on your template. When you

design items for a single locale, you can configure the format (or appearance) of information that

may vary between regions, such as date and time, currency, numbering, and so on.

By using BarTender, you can also globalize your design and print international materials by inserting

text in multiple languages. For example, the following item illustrates how BarTender can be used

with many locales with its built-in Unicode support.

BarTender's Unicode Support

Unicode is a universal character encoding standard that defines the basis for the processing,

storage and interchange of text data in any language. Think of Unicode as a single, giant code page,

which represents every character in every language in the world. With full-system Unicode support,

BarTender provides a way to read and print almost any international character or symbol.

By having full-system Unicode support, BarTender addresses every aspect of data processing and

data handling, so that you can do the following:

l Combine text from multiple languages into a single text object or data source.

l Import data from databases in which the language varies from field to field and from record to

record.

l Take advantage of printer-based Unicode fonts for high-performance printing in multiple

languages.

l Access files, printers and servers whose names, paths and network locations contain any

international characters.

l Print subscript and superscript characters for chemical formulas, footnotes, mathematical

equations, and so on.

Using International Characters in BarTender 3

Understanding International Character Support

Every language in the world uses a specific script that is based on the characters in that language. A

script is a writing system that includes a set of symbols and the rules for how to put them together

into meaningful words or sets. For example, the Western script has a rule that the symbols read from

left to right, while the Arabic script has a rule that the symbols read from right to left and that

different versions of a symbol must be used depending on whether the symbol is at the beginning of

a word, at the end of a word, or in between words.

To use more than one language in a single text object, you must choose a font that supports all the

languages and scripts that you want to include.

Fonts

A font is a set of symbols, called glyphs. For most fonts, the glyphs share common design elements

so that they look visually compatible with each other. The common design elements of a font are

known as the typeface of the font, and the font is usually named after its typeface.

Resident and Downloaded Fonts

When you use a TrueType or OpenType font for a text object, the text area must be sent as an

image to your printer each time the item is printed. Images are large and they take more time to

send to a printer than simple text data does. But, depending on which international script you

need, you may be able to use one of the following methods to avoid the performance loss that

comes from having to transmit the text object as an image:

l Use a font that is resident in the printer.

l Use a downloaded font.

For more information about how to optimize print performance, refer to the Optimizing Print

Performance white paper at the following BarTender Software website:

https://www.bartendersoftware.com/resources/white-papers/

Scripts

Each font includes one or more scripts that can be used with it. These scripts determine which

languages are supported by the font. The script that you select also defines the language rules that

are used for line breaking and directionality (whether the language is read from left to right or from

right to left).

Some fonts, including Arial, include glyphs from more than one script. Others, like Andalus, have

glyphs from only one script. The Arial Unicode MS font has glyphs for all major languages and many

minor languages--over 50,000 glyphs in all.

In BarTender, the supported scripts for a font are listed on the Advanced tab of the Font property

page. To determine which script you need for the language that you want, refer to Appendix A:

Languages, Encodings and Scripts in this white paper.

Using International Characters in BarTender 4

If you cannot find any font that supports the languages that you want, then you may need to install

additional fonts or configure your computer to support your language. For more information about

Windows configuration, refer to Appendix B: Configuring Windows in this white paper.

Asian Characters

BarTender supports the entry, reading and printing of a wide selection of Asian characters.

Each Asian language has unique line breaking rules that define how to wrap text. These rules include

the characters that are not allowed to start or end a line, and characters that should not be split into

two lines. By selecting the correct script in BarTender, you can ensure that the correct language

rules are used across the text objects in your document.

There is a large number of less frequently used Asian characters that are defined in 16 additional

“planes” that can represent even more Unicode characters. Whether these supplementary

characters are entered at the keyboard or read from a database, BarTender displays and prints

them as easily as any other characters.

Writing Systems that Read Right to Left

Languages such as Hebrew and Arabic that are read from right to left raise issues that are related to

reading order. There are two senses in which text can have a reading order. Each language has an

inherent reading order and, in text that mixes languages, there is a reading order for the separate

runs of characters from each language.

Use BarTender to set the reading order for each individual text object in your design. When you use a

single text object with multiple languages, you can also separate each language into a separate data

Using International Characters in BarTender 5

source. This way, you can specify a separate reading order for each run of text in your text object to

eliminate possible readability issues for the text on your items. For more information, refer to

Specifying Reading Order in the BarTender help system.

Using International Characters in BarTender 6

Entering International Text Into Text Objects

In BarTender, text objects can get their data from a variety of different sources. You can type in your

data, pull it from a database or even link it to the date and/or time on your printer. No matter which

data source you need to use, you can rely on BarTender to accurately display characters from any

number of languages that are supported by the fonts and scripts that are available on your

computer.

If you decide to type your data directly into the object or to import your data from a database, you

may find the following tips helpful.

Using the Insert Symbols or Special Characters Dialog

You can use the Insert Symbols or Special Characters dialog to insert characters into a text object

on your template. To do this, follow these steps:

1. On the BarTender Text menu, click Normal or Normal Wrapped, and then click the location on

your template where you want to place the text object.

2. Double-click the text object or click Properties on the text object's context menu to open the

Text Properties dialog.

3. In the left navigation pane, click the

object's data source to open the Data

Sources property page.

4. Click the Data Source tab.

5. At the right of the Embedded Data field,

click to open the Insert Symbols or

Special Characters dialog.

6. Click the Symbols tab.

7. In the Font list, select the font family that

you want. Note that some fonts are

language-specific, and not all fonts

support all languages.

8. Optionally, use the Subset list to select a

specific subset of characters within the

character list.

9. Click the character that you want to insert into your document.

10. Click Insert. The character is inserted into the text box.

11. Click Close.

For more information, refer to the Insert Symbols or Special Characters Dialog topic in the BarTender

help system.

Using the Windows Character Map

If you are using an older version of BarTender or are entering characters into objects that don't

support the Insert Symbols or Special Characters dialog, you can use the Windows Character Map

Using International Characters in BarTender 7

instead. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open the Windows Start menu.

2. Run charmap.exe. The Character Map dialog

opens.

3. In the Font list, select a font that supports the

characters that you need.

4. Click to select the Advanced view check box to

expand the bottom of the Character Map dialog.

5. Leave the Character set option set to Unicode.

6. Optionally, use the Group by list and resulting

dialog to narrow down your selection of

characters.

7. Locate and then click the character that you want

to add, and then click Select to add the character

to the Characters to copy box. Repeat this step as many times as needed.

8. Click Copy to place the characters on the Windows clipboard.

In BarTender:

1. Open your BarTender document.

2. Click the text box where you want to add the characters.

3. On the Edit menu, click Paste. Alternatively, press Ctrl+V.

Using the Keyboard

Standard keyboards, which typically have 100-110 keys each, have been developed in every region

of the world. It is always easiest to enter the international characters that you need directly from

your region’s standard keyboard when you can, because this requires no configuration of either

BarTender or Windows.

Sometimes one or more of the keys on a standard keyboard is directly assigned to an international

character. For example, the standard 103-key keyboards that are found throughout Europe and

North America have keys for the left and right angle brackets (< and >) which can be used to enter

the French quotation marks (<< and >>).

You can also enter international characters into a BarTender text object or data entry control by

holding down the Alt key while using the numeric keypad to type a number from 128 to 255. When

you release the Alt key, a character appears. The character that appears depends on the keyboard

that you use.

Re-mapping Your Keyboard

If you have a lot of international text to enter, you may prefer to temporarily turn your keyboard

into one that is designed for use with an international language. Windows can re-map your keys

to international characters in a way that closely matches the standard keyboard of the

international region.

Using International Characters in BarTender 8

To enable this re-mapping feature, you must first follow the steps in Appendix B: Configuring

Windows in this white paper.

For information about how to re-map your keyboard, refer to your Windows documentation.

Reading International Characters from a Database

BarTender can read data in multiple languages from a database and display it in a linked object on

your template. When you connect to your database, keep the following considerations in mind. Many

of BarTender's settings remain the same as a database in your native language, but for text files, you

may need to make a few configurations.

For more information about how to connect to a database, refer to Reading Data from Databases in

the BarTender help system.

International Text Files

To read data from international text files, use the Database Setup wizard just as you would with

any other text file. On the File Format screen, click one of the three Unicode options from the

Encoding list. This ensures that there is virtually no limit to the variety of languages that can be

used in the database.

International OLE DB and ODBC Databases

No changes in your Windows settings are required to read international character data from an

OLE DB or ODBC database. No matter what language Windows is using, all of your data is

imported to the template correctly, and there is virtually no limit to the variety of writing systems

that can be used in the database.

Using International Characters in BarTender 9

Encoding International Characters in Barcodes

Every barcode that you add to your template has a unique specification that defines how the

barcode encodes its data. This specification, called a symbology, is the encoding scheme that is

used to express numerical and character data with a pattern in a barcode. Linear, or one-

dimensional (1-D), symbologies rely on bars and spaces to encode the data, while two-dimensional

(2-D) symbologies (such as Data Matrix or PDF417) use dots or squares and spaces. The

arrangement of these basic elements is defined by the type of symbology that is in use.

Some symbologies natively support encoding of international characters. If you need to encode

characters from multiple languages in a barcode, first choose a symbology that fits your languages

and the characters that you need to include.

You can find a list of supported character sets on the Symbology and Size property page under Text

Encoding. If this option is unavailable, then you cannot encode international characters by using the

selected symbology.

Using Unicode Data

Barcodes do not directly accept Unicode-formatted data. Therefore, if Unicode-formatted data is

passed to a barcode object from, for example, a database or a data entry control, it must first be

converted to an older byte-oriented encoding before it is expressed as a barcode. BarTender usually

converts such data to the ANSI 1252 (Western languages) encoding. Unicode characters that have

no equivalent in the ANSI 1252 encoding are replaced with "0xFF". Depending on the symbology, this

code might be ignored or it may be replaced with a zero.

Using International Characters in BarTender 10

Some parts of the data stream for Data Matrix, QR Code and Aztec Code barcodes might be

converted to an encoding other than ANSI 1252. For more information, refer to the documentation

for each of these barcodes in the Seagull Scientific Barcode Guide.

https://barcodeguide.seagullscientific.com/Content/gettingStarted.htm

ECI Protocol

The Extended Channel Interpretation (ECI) standard

specifies a protocol for adding escape sequences to

data. BarTender can use the ECI protocol to encode

text into a barcode by using various international

character sets or Unicode (UTF-8).

Supported symbologies:

l Han Xin Code

l MicroPDF417

l PDF417

Using International Characters in BarTender 11

Formatting According to Locale

Various countries may process data such as time, date, numbers and currency differently. For

example, in the United States, a standard date format is mm/dd/yy. However, in Austria, dates are

formatted as d.m.(yy)yy, and Thailand formats dates according to the Buddhist Era calendar, which is

entirely different from the Common Era calendar that is used by most Western countries. Time is

formatted quite differently in many countries, as is currency.

BarTender offers the ability to format your text according to country or region.

About Data Types

Each data source in BarTender has a data type associated with it. The data type specifies the kind of

data that the data source represents, such as text, number or currency. When you select a specific

data type, you can then configure it to specify the formatting style by country and/or region by using

the Locale option. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open the Properties dialog for the text

object that you want to format.

2. In the left navigation pane, click the data

source that you want.

3. Click the Data Type tab.

4. In the Type list, select the type of data

that you want to format. You can format

the following data types by locale:

Date

Time

Number

Currency

Percentage

Fraction

5. In the Locale list, click the locale that you want.

6. In the Format list, click the formatting that you want.

7. Click Close to apply your changes and return to your template.

Example

Suppose that you are creating price tags that will be used in the Czech Republic. The price needs to

be formatted appropriately for the native Czech format. By setting the locale, you can modify how the

price appears on your template without ever changing the text.

The following image illustrates how a price of 35.99 is formatted for the United States and the Czech

Republic. The only setting in BarTender that changed is the Locale.

Using International Characters in BarTender 12

Appendix A: Languages, Encodings and Scripts

This table displays pre-Unicode encoding for the world's major languages. Also listed is the name of

the script that each language uses.

Language Encoding Script

Arabic 1256 Arabic

Bulgarian 1251 Cyrillic

Chinese

(Simplified)

936

Chinese

(Simplified)

Chinese

(Traditional)

950

Chinese

(Traditional)

Chinese

(Hong Kong)

950

Chinese

(Traditional)

Croatian 1250

Central

European

Czech 1250

Central

European

Danish 1252 Western

Dutch 1252 Western

English 1252 Western

Estonian 1257 Baltic

Finnish 1252 Western

French 1252 Western

German 1252 Western

Greek 1253 Greek

Hebrew 1255 Hebrew

Hungarian 1250

Central

European

Italian 1252 Western

Language Encoding Script

Japanese 932 Japanese

Korean

(Hanja)

950

Chinese

(Traditional)

Korean

(Hangul)

949 or

1361

Hangul or

Korean

Latvian 1257 Baltic

Lithuanian 1257 Baltic

Norwegian 1252 Western

Polish 1250

Central

European

Portuguese

(Portugal)

1252 Western

Portuguese

(Brazil)

1252 Western

Romanian 1250

Central

European

Russian 1251 Cyrillic

Slovak 1250

Central

European

Slovenian 1250

Central

European

Spanish 1252 Western

Swedish 1252 Western

Thai 874 Thai

Turkish 1254 Turkish

Vietnamese 1258 Vietnamese

Using International Characters in BarTender 13

Appendix B: Configuring Windows

Installing Windows Input Support for International Languages

You can turn your keyboard into an international language keyboard or add Windows support for

inputting international languages with special on-screen tools.

To install Windows support for international languages (Windows 10)

1. Click Start, click Settings, and then click Time and Language.

2. In the left navigation pane, click Region and language.

3. Under Languages, click Add a language.

4. Enter the language that you want in the search field, or click the language in the list. Repeat

this step as needed for the regional language variant that you want.

5. On the Region and language page, click Additional date, time, and regional settings.

6. On the Clock, Language, and Region page, click Change input methods under Language.

7. Click Options for the language that you want.

8. On the Language options page, under Windows display language, click to download and

install the language pack, as needed.

9. On the Language options page, under Input method, click Add an input method.

10. On the Input method page, click the keyboard type that you want to add, and then click Add.

11. On the Language options page, click Save.

To install Windows support for international languages (Windows 8 and earlier versions):

1. On the Windows Start menu, click Control Panel. (If you are using the “Classic Start menu”,

you must first click Settings.)

2. Click the Clock, Language, and Region link. (Skip this step if you are using the “Classic Start

menu”.)

3. Click the Region and Language link. The Region and Language dialog opens.

4. Click the Keyboards and Languages tab.

5. Click Change Keyboards. The Text Services and Import Languages dialog opens.

6. Click the Default Input Language list. If the language that you want is not listed there, click

Add. The Add Input Language dialog opens.

If the language is not listed in this dialog, then you must install

support for it.

7. Click + next to the language that you want to add.

8. Click + next to Keyboard.

Using International Characters in BarTender 14

9. Click to select the check box for the language that you want to add. If you want to keep your

keyboard's default language as well, click to select that check box too.

10. Click OKto close each of the open dialogs.

11. If you are instructed to restart the computer or to insert the Windows CD, do so, and then

follow the instructions.

12. When the installation is complete, you can reopen BarTender and your template and begin to

enter international text by using the keyboard. For more information, refer to Re-mapping Your

Keyboard in the "Entering International Text Into Text Objects" chapter of this white paper.

Windows Support for Additional Display Languages

Windows is installed with support for the languages that you are most likely to need, but you may

need to install support for additional languages.

You can add display languages by installing additional language files. When you install language files,

you can view wizards, dialog boxes, menus, help topics, and other items in Windows in a different

language.

There are two types of language files, as follows:

l Windows Multilingual User Interface Pack (MUI)

l Windows Language Interface Pack (LIP)

For more information, refer to the following Microsoft web pages:

l "Multilingual User Interface"

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/Intl/multilingual-user-interface

l "Add languages to Windows images"

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/add-language-

interface-packs-to-windows

Using International Characters in BarTender 15