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I have now spent quite a while dealing with troublesome images with the Softek Barcode Reader SDK and have found several tricks which solve almost all problems which could arise. The issue is almost always image quality. Poorly scanned colour images or simply a low resolution leading to the bars coming together are often the culprit. However it is true that many people dealing with the Softek Barcode Reader SDK do not have any choice over the quality of images that they use and the toolkit offers a variety of options for dealing with this. Below are the most common solutions which are worth playing around with should you encounter difficulty, it is by no means exhaustive but does often solve the problem!

Noise Reduction Filter under the ‘Image Clean Up’ tab works well with poor resolution images. A typical value to try is around ‘10’ but larger values should be used with caution since it can destroy some of the information. While this can remove black marks the ‘despeckle filter’ when ticked can remove the white marks within the bars. Therefore if the Noise Reduction Filter does not solve your problem it is worth then trying to tick the ‘despeckle filter’.

Min Space Bar Width is usually automatically selected by the Softek Barcode Reader SDK to try and get the best value but if the scan is of a poor quality (with white dots in the bars) then it is worth trying a new value. By changing the setting of the Min Space Bar Width it allows the SDK to ignore the small break ups in the bars and thus more likely to get a read.

Skew Tolerance under the ‘Speed and Skew’ tab means the Softek Barcode Reader SDK looks for barcodes at more varied angles. This is often useful when barcodes are attached to a document with a sticker manually and are not reliably at the correct angle.

Quiet Zone Size which can be found under the same tab as ‘Skew Tolerance’ is useful when the barcode is not in a ‘quiet’ area of its own. It allows the SDK to find a barcode when it may not be in a clear area of its own and other black lines in the image could be distracting the Barcode Reader SDK from finding the image.

Image Only PDF tick box is probably the most common solution for any problems regarding the processing of PDF images. By changing whether this box is ticked it changes the method through which images within PDFs are processed by the Softek Barcode Reader SDK and will often be the solution.

Barcode Type Selection is the final and probably the most obvious setting to check. Ensure that you have ticked for the SDK to be checking for the type of barcode you are trying to read.

If these suggestions have not solved your problem then feel free to contact us at support@bardecode.com and we will happily help with any problems you may be encountering.