Every one seems to want to bar code things and is curious about bar codes an QB.

First let’s understand that a bar code scanner is nothing more than a substitute for a keyboard.  The scanner reads the code, translates it into characters, and sends those characters to the computer.  It is up to the software that the characters are sent to, to do something with the characters received.  And since QB is not designed to handle bar codes, that puts limitations on how you can implement bar codes and QB.

QB does not have a separate field for a bar code.   QB picks your items by the item name, so if you want to use a bar code scanner the code has to be the same as the item name.

That gives you a choice, you can use the bar code provided by the manufacturer on the package and use that information as the item name,  or create your own using item names that mean something to you.

Typically manufacturer bar codes are not real useful in this situation.  I find it easier to use one of the free programs on the net that generate bar codes that correspond to the item name I type in. Then I print a sheet and stick the labels on the items.

In QB, when you put the cursor in an item name field, then scan the bar code, if the code and the QB item name are the same, QB will pull up the item.

As well as using the bar code for item names, you can also create a sheet of control codes as bar codes, that allows you to scan commands like: TAB, Enter, ESC, etc etc.

The more complicated bar codes that include the item name and price are useless in QB since it is not really designed to use bar codes at all.  You could have the item name include the price, but QB will not pull that price out of the item name and use it as a price on a sales document.