[KLUG Members] barcode

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> I have successfully printed using the barcode program a table of
> barcodes as desired in a perl script using the system function to
> execute barcode.  Now I want to add text to the page.  What I am looking
> for is a way to make text appear on a page similar to the way you can
> print text to the screen in a program, by designating the position for
> the text to print.
> So how do I create a postscript document.  I imagine I would need a perl
> module, (or any other language) where I could do something like:
> BEGIN POSTSCRIPT
> PRINT x=55, y=135, text="ABC" font="helvetica" fontsize="14"

I have a book on Postscript you can borrow.  Writing Postscript is awful.

> END POSTSCRIPT
> Can I do this kind of thing with ghostscript or any other type of
> library or software.
> I'm planning on getting the text postscript page on the same page as the
> barcodes.  I'm not evan sure if I can get enscript to get 2 postscript
> pages on the same page.  There has to be some relatively simple way to
> do this.  I'm banging my head at this point.

I cheated once.  I designed the label(s) in glabels and "printed" to a
postscript file.  Then I sed'd the strings in the postscript file.

> It seems I should be able to do with a postscript printer what I can do
> with a barcode printer!!

You need something that has a 'canvas' you can draw on.  I'd look and see if
there are python/perl/whatever-language-you-are-using to the GNOME print
libraries.