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A CGI (Common Gateway Interface) Application is an application that a WWW server can execute. The easiest way to create barcodes
on your web server is to use a CGI application that generates barcodes. It is enough to install just one executable file on the server.
Embedding a barcode into an HTML page is as easy as using IMG tags. -
Our CGI applications are written in C++ and are executable files, which ensures higher speed and lower load for the web server.
You can use our CGI applications both on the Windows platform and on Linux with either IIS or Apache servers. - Here you can test our barcode CGI applications online.
You can use this application right after that. Enter the address of your barcode CGI application into the browser address bar and you should see the barcode image.
You can see a sample DataMatrix barcode below.
You can specify parameters to customize the barcode. For example, use the data parameter to encode the string "HelloWorld" in DataMatrix.
http://localhost/test/dmtxcgi?data=HelloWorld
See the corresponding description for more detailed information about the parameters of the CGI application (click CGI in the menu to the left and then, for example, click DataMatrix).
You can use the barcode CGI generator in an IMG tag of your HTML page.
For example:
<html>You will see a page like the one shown below.
<head>
<title>Barcode CGI generator</title>
<body>
<h2>Using Barcode CGI generator</h2>
<img src="http://localhost/test/dmtxcgi?data=1234567&w=120&h=120" alt="">
</body>
</html>
Upload the CGI application (dmtxcgi file) in the binary mode to your server (for example, to the cgi-bin directory).
Set the execution permission (CHMOD) to 755, for example.
You can use the barcode CGI generator right after that.
Create a Virtual Directory and copy the file of the CGI application (dmtxcgi.exe file) to it. Set "Execute permissions" in the properties of the Virtual Directory as shown in the picture below. It is better to use a separate folder for CGI applications.
Set the security properties of the file as shown in the picture. The account the file of the CGI script will run under must have the Execute permission. See the picture below. If you do not do it, you will get the following error:
HTTP Error 401.3 - Unauthorized: Access is denied due to an ACL set on the requested resource.
And the last. You must add CGI applications to the list of allowed "Web Service Extensions". If you do not do it, you will get error 404:
HTTP Error 404 - File or directory not found.
To do it, start Internet Information Service (IIS) Manager, click "Web Service Extensions" and add the CGI application as shown in the picture.
Also, you can allow "All Unknown CGI Extensions", but we do not recommend that you do it for security reasons.
You can also find information about installing CGI onto the Microsoft IIS server on the Microsoft site.
Configuring CGI Applications (IIS 6.0)
Installing CGI Applications in IIS 6.0 (IIS 6.0)
Configuring the Maximum Number of Concurrent CGI Requests (IIS 6.0)
Configuring CGI Application Timeouts (IIS 6.0)
| Parameter Name | Description | Corresponding property of PDF417-ActiveX | Default value |
| w | PDF417 picture width. | 200 | |
| h | PDF417 picture height. | 100 | |
| xdim | PDF417 X-Dimension. | This parameter makes sense only if the w and h parameters are not used. | 2 |
| data | Sets the data that is to be encoded in the PDF417. | DataToEncode | 1234567 |
| cmode | PDF417 Compaction mode. Possible values: 0...3 |
CompactionMode | 0 |
| ecl | PDF417 Error Correction Level. Possible values: 0...9 |
ErrorCorrectionLevel | 9 |
| col | Data Columns. Possible values: 0(auto)...30 |
DataColumns | 3 |
| row | Data Rows. Possible values: 0(auto), 3...90 |
DataRows | 0 |
| cpdf | Compact PDF. Possible values: 0(normal PDF417) or 1(compact) |
CompactPDF | 1 |
| angle | Orientation of the PDF417 bar code. Possible values: 0, 90, 180, 270 |
Orientation | 0 |
| quiet | Show quiet zones. Possible values: 0(hide) or 1(show) |
QuietZone | 1 |
| alignh | Horizontal barcode alignment. Possible values: 0...3 |
AlignH | 1 |
| alignv | Vertical barcode alignment. Possible values: 0...3 |
AlignV | 1 |
| bcolor | Background color. Possible values: 000000...ffffff The color must be presented as RGB, i.e. you should specify the value ff0000 for the red color. |
BackColor | ffffff (white) |
| fcolor | Foreground color. Possible values: 000000...ffffff |
ForeColor | 000000 (black) |
| y2x | PDF417 Y to X Ratio. | Y2XRatio | 4.0 |
| help | Displays information about our PDF417 CGI generator. See below. | ||
| debug | Displays information about the error. See below. |
http://localhost/test/pdf417cgi.exe?data=HelloWorld&xdim=2&bcolor=ffff00&fcolor=0000ff
"HelloWorld" will be encoded in the PDF417 barcode, the x-dimension is 2 pixels, the background color is yellow, the foreground color is blue. See the picture below.
To get information about the PDF417 CGI application (and also the license information), just specify the parameter help:
http://localhost/test/pdf417cgi.exe?help=1
If the web server returns an error for some reason (for example, a CGI Error for a Windows server or an Internal Server Error for Linux), you may have specified some parameters incorrectly. Try specifying the parameters as shown below and you will get such an error.
http://localhost/test/pdf417cgi.exe?data=HelloWorld&w=1
As you can see, the width of the PDF417 image is set to 1 pixel. Of course, a PDF417 barcode image cannot have this size. To get debugging information, add the parameter debug and you will see an error message:
http://localhost/test/pdf417cgi.exe?data=HelloWorld&w=1&debug=1
