topic Re: 2D barcode font for AutoCAD in AutoCAD Forum

2D barcode font for AutoCAD

caddude1 — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 15:18:25 GMT

I am looking for a resource with a 2D barcode scanner font, which I can use with AutoCAD. My requirement is for repeatably sized and spaced images of a series of numbers for an optical scanner. I can create (in Adobe) the PDF file; however, the sizing and spacing of imported images (GIF files) become a challenge. The spacing is a critical point, as the product is positioning an AGV in a plant environment.

Re: 2D barcode font for AutoCAD

pendean — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 15:30:49 GMT

Like this?

https://apps.autodesk.com/INVNTOR/en/Detail/Index?id=6498986275150675602&appLang=en&os=Win64

Re: 2D barcode font for AutoCAD

caddude1 — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 16:01:56 GMT

Thank you for the link @pendean. I am not looking for a barcode for a DWG file. I am looking for a barcode font to use within a drawing, which will create a 2D code for a numerical value. I have a series of codes that need to be read by a scanner to determine the position of an AGV and fed back for internal processing.

Re: 2D barcode font for AutoCAD

DGCSCAD — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 16:55:10 GMT

This one works for what I've used:

LibreBarcode39-Regular.ttf

Edit: Keep in mind you'll need a * as a prefix and suffix, as in:

*12345*

Re: 2D barcode font for AutoCAD

apotterSJHGL — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 16:46:52 GMT

I think what we are looking for a data matrix code, not a 2d bar code.

Re: 2D barcode font for AutoCAD

caddude1 — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 17:05:46 GMT

Correct, Andrew. I misspoke on the original e-mail.

Re: 2D barcode font for AutoCAD

paullimapa — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 18:43:55 GMT

After creating the PDF from Adobe, just use AutoCAD's PDFAttach command to place the PDF into your drawing at a scale of 1.

https://help.autodesk.com/view/ACD/2026/ENU/?guid=GUID-77D6192C-925B-46A3-8717-240702ED5715

Re: 2D barcode font for AutoCAD

caddude1 — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 19:31:34 GMT

@paullimapa I have done so, with success in generating the drawing. My challenge is that AutoCAD puts a complete border around the image. The scanner software fails when it sees the border around the open areas of a matrix. See the attached screen grab.

Re: 2D barcode font for AutoCAD

paullimapa — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 19:17:44 GMT

in AutoCAD enter PDFFRAME and set that to 0

https://help.autodesk.com/view/ACD/2025/ENU/?guid=GUID-9FC48ACE-3962-4977-B2BB-CD90984E91D6

Re: 2D barcode font for AutoCAD

caddude1 — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 20:29:12 GMT

@paullimapa That was the first option I tried. I am using AutoCAD Electrical, so that may have something to do with it also. I have tried setting the value to 2 as well with the same result in the plotted drawing. The value that I set the variable to does not affect the drawing. I have found this in multiple files I created to test it out. The attached image is a newly created file, with the value set to "0" as the command line shows.

Re: 2D barcode font for AutoCAD

TheCADnoob — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 21:30:50 GMT

My recommendation would be just to get the geometry into AutoCAD natively.

We have a proprietary way of generating QR codes that output as SVG. That said, there are lots of online places that can generate QR codes and output them as svg.

edit: you can use quickchart.io

URL > https://quickchart.io/qr?text=yourtexthere&format=svg

From there, I put it in a third-party application to convert it to dxf. (I use Inkscape, but anything that can convert svg to dxf should work)

Then once its in DXF, I just copy it into the drawing.

It should be noted that our SVG only outputs line segments. So when it first comes in its polylines with no width, so i have to do one extra step of applying a line width to the imported dxf lines.

before adding width

Re: 2D barcode font for AutoCAD

paullimapa — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 21:21:27 GMT

That’s odd. Could you share your pdf?

Re: 2D barcode font for AutoCAD

caddude1 — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 11:02:24 GMT

Here is the PDF, SIr. thank you for your time and effort in helping me.

Re: 2D barcode font for AutoCAD

leeminardi — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 14:26:16 GMT

Regarding the border, how about adding a polyline to cover the border? Set its width to a small value (e.g., 0.1) and its RGB color to 255,255,255.

This prints as:

Re: 2D barcode font for AutoCAD

paullimapa — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 17:37:23 GMT

I'm using plain AutoCAD 2021 and the PDFFRAME setting is behaving as documented.

The only time the printed pdf shows a frame around the barcode is when PDFFRAME is set to 1

See screenshots & attached dwg & pdfs