Barcodes (1D) — the extensible encoder framework

Pageworks ships a font-asset-coupled framework for 1D (linear) barcode symbologies: Code 39, Code 128, and EAN-13 encoders, plus built-in fonts so a tenant gets a working barcode out of the box with no font upload of their own. The framework is designed to be extended by third parties without touching this app's source.

Render-time auto-encode is shipped — bind the raw value, no manual encode call needed

Bind a raw, unencoded business value to a run styled in a font whose registered symbology (Interpreter) is not None, and the engine encodes it for you at render time — no Symbology.Encode(...) call in your own AL code required. See Automatic encoding at render time below. The template language still has no dedicated <barcode> tag — a barcode is authored as ordinary styled text in a barcode font, same as any other text run — and a manual pre-encode workflow (encode the value yourself, bind the already-encoded text) still works too, e.g. for symbologies without a built-in encoder. See "What's not built yet" for what's still missing.

How it fits together

1. An encoder turns raw business data (an item no., a GTIN) into the exact character sequence a barcode font must render — checksums, start/stop markers, code-set switches, all computed in AL, because the engine does no OpenType shaping.
2. A font asset is marked with which symbology (if any) it renders, via a new Interpreter field. A font that isn't a barcode font leaves this at None.
3. A template renders the already-encoded text in that font, styled via ordinary style="font-family: ...;" — exactly like any other custom font today.

The encoder framework (extensible)

PageworksBarcodeSymbology is a public, Extensible = true enum implementing the public PageworksBarcodeEncoder interface:

interface PageworksBarcodeEncoder
{
    procedure Encode(Input: Text): Text;
}

Value	Symbology	Notes
None (0)	—	identity passthrough; the default for every non-barcode font
Code39 (1)	Code 39
Code128 (2)	Code 128
Ean13 (3)	EAN-13

Encode fails loud (raises an error) on invalid input — a value the symbology's charset can't represent, a wrong length, a bad check digit — rather than silently truncating or substituting. A malformed barcode is treated as a business-critical defect, never a soft degradation.

Bringing your own symbology

A third party adds support for a new symbology (e.g. Code 93, ITF-14) without any change to this app:

codeunit 70200 MyCode93Encoder implements PageworksBarcodeEncoder
{
    procedure Encode(Input: Text): Text
    begin
        // your Code 93 encoding logic
    end;
}

enumextension 70201 MyBarcodeSymbologyExt extends PageworksBarcodeSymbology
{
    value(70200; Code93)
    {
        Caption = 'Code 93';
        Implementation = PageworksBarcodeEncoder = MyCode93Encoder;
    }
}

Bringing your own barcode font

Any TrueType-outline (glyf) font can be registered as a barcode font by coupling it to a symbology on registration:

procedure RegisterFont(Name: Code[50]; StyleVariant: Enum PageworksFontStyleVariant; var FontData: Codeunit "Temp Blob"; Description: Text[100]; Symbology: Enum PageworksBarcodeSymbology)

This is a new overload of PageworksRegistry.RegisterFont — the existing 4-parameter overload is unchanged and still registers ordinary text fonts (Symbology defaults to None). Registering a font with a non-None symbology stores it exactly like any other font asset, plus the Interpreter tag:

codeunit 70101 MyAppInstall
{
    Subtype = Install;

    trigger OnInstallAppPerCompany()
    var
        Registry: Codeunit PageworksRegistry;
        FontData: Codeunit "Temp Blob";
        FontOutStream: OutStream;
    begin
        FontData.CreateOutStream(FontOutStream);
        // ... write your TTF/OTF font program bytes to FontOutStream ...
        Registry.RegisterFont(
            'MyCode93Font', Enum::PageworksFontStyleVariant::Regular, FontData,
            'Corporate Code 93 barcode font', Enum::PageworksBarcodeSymbology::Code93);
    end;
}

The font asset card and list pages (Pageworks Font Assets) surface the Interpreter field — read-only on Extension-scope rows, editable on Tenant-scope rows, following the same lockdown pattern as every other tenant-editable font field.

Shipped built-in barcode fonts

Every tenant gets these registered as Extension-scope baseline PageworksFontAsset rows automatically on install — zero manual font upload required:

Font family	Symbology	Provenance
Libre Barcode 39	Code 39	SIL Open Font License 1.1, Copyright 2017-2019 The Libre Barcode Project Authors — a real third-party font, embedded under its OFL license
Pageworks Code 128	Code 128	Generated by Pageworks from the open ISO/IEC 15417 standard's functional bar-width table — not a third-party font, carries no font license (see Fonts shipped)
Pageworks EAN-13	EAN-13	Generated by Pageworks from the open ISO/IEC 15420 / GS1 standard's functional bar-width tables — same provenance model as the Code 128 font

Use the exact font-family name from the table above in style="font-family: ...;". A template combining font-family with a weight/style for which no matching variant is registered fails loudly (LF-FONT-VARIANT) — all three built-in barcode fonts ship Regular weight only today.

Code 39 space character

The Code 39 encoder pins every space character in its encoded output to codepoint U+00C2 — the actual space-bar glyph in the built-in Libre Barcode 39 font (its cmap has no glyph at the ordinary space, U+0020). This is a font-specific fixup inside the Code 39 encoder wrapper; you never need to do this substitution yourself when using the built-in font + encoder together.

Automatic encoding at render time

A font asset registered with a non-None Interpreter (symbology) is treated as a barcode font. Bind a raw value — the item number, GTIN, or other plain business text — to a run styled in that font, and the renderer auto-encodes it in place before drawing:

<p style="font-family: 'Pageworks Code 128'; font-size: 36pt;">{{ItemNo}}</p>

No Symbology.Encode(...) call, no pre-encoded dataset column — {{ItemNo}} is the plain item number; the engine resolves the run's font, sees its Interpreter is Code128, and runs the raw text through that symbology's PageworksBarcodeEncoder.Encode exactly once, on the run's full raw text, before measuring/drawing it. Every other run (an ordinary text font, Interpreter = None) is completely unaffected — auto-encode is a strict no-op unless the resolved font is coupled to a symbology.

If the value can't be encoded for that symbology (non-numeric input to EAN-13, wrong length, a bad check digit), the render fails loud with an LF-BARCODE-ENCODE finding rather than drawing a silently garbled barcode — see Error & finding code catalog.

Manual usage — pre-encoding the value yourself

Auto-encode covers the common case, but you can still encode a value yourself before it reaches the template — useful for a symbology without a built-in encoder, or when you need the encoded string for something other than direct rendering.

// e.g. in a report's dataset, a calculated column
column(BarcodeText; GetEncodedItemNo())
{
}

local procedure GetEncodedItemNo(): Text
var
    Symbology: Enum PageworksBarcodeSymbology;
begin
    Symbology := Symbology::Code39;
    exit(Symbology.Encode(Item."No."));
end;

<p style="font-family: 'Libre Barcode 39'; font-size: 24pt;">{{BarcodeText}}</p>

The enum value itself implements PageworksBarcodeEncoder (via Implementation = on each enum value), so calling Encode directly on the enum value dispatches to the right codeunit — this is the same interface-implementing-enum pattern used elsewhere in Business Central.

:::caution Don't double-encode If the bound run's font is coupled to a symbology, the engine encodes the value at render time regardless of whether you already encoded it yourself. Pre-encode only when binding to a font with Interpreter = None (i.e. you're rendering the encoded string as plain text, not through a barcode-font run) — otherwise bind the raw value and let auto-encode do the work. :::

What's not built yet

• A dedicated <barcode> template tag. Not part of this release — 1D barcodes are authored today as styled text in a barcode font, the same as any other text run.
• Check-digit configurability. Code 39's Mod-43 check digit is currently always off in the built-in encoder.

Error codes

Code	Meaning
LF-BARCODE-ENCODE	Render-time auto-encode (see above) failed for the value bound to a barcode-coupled font — invalid charset, wrong length, or bad check digit for that symbology.
LF-FONT-VARIANT	The font-family resolved, but no matching weight/style variant is registered.
LF-FONT-UNRESOLVED	The font-family itself is not a registered font.

Encoding failures raised from your own manual Symbology.Encode(...) call (the "Manual usage" pattern above) surface as ordinary AL errors, not LF-* findings, since that encoding happens in your own report/dataset code before the value ever reaches the Pageworks renderer. See the full Error & finding code catalog for every code.