Seagull's BarTender Label and RFID Software Version 8.0

Seagull Scientific is scheduled to release version 8.0 of its popular BarTender label software in the first half of March. Widely used for designing and printing industrial labels containing bar codes, text, graphics, and RFID tags, the highlight of the new release is the introduction of an Enterprise Print Server edition.

Built around the core functionality of the RFID Enterprise edition, "Print Server" adds centralized print management functions and web-based printing technology that Seagull claims is not available elsewhere. Seagull says that these new capabilities give network users the ability to submit and launch label print jobs from almost any computer regardless of operating system.

The new centralized print management functions are based on enhanced automation, integration, load handling, and job management capabilities. This enables users to specify, launch, and route numerous label jobs using one copy of BarTender running on a single "label printing server" PC. However, because licensing for the Print Server edition is based on the number of printers used (rather than the number of computers), users can optionally install BarTender on additional networked servers and workstations.

Besides manual execution of BarTender, established methods of controlling label print jobs include ActiveX automation and a number of file and e-mail based trigger functions. In addition, the Print Server edition introduces two new remote job management features - one each for manual and automated job control.

Manual control is provided by the BarTender Web Print Server client. Users enter the appropriate URL into a web browser to connect to the Printer Server and select from thumbnail previews of the label format(s) they wish to print. Print-time data prompts designed in BarTender are automatically converted into HTML and transmitted to the web client for pop-up and data fill-in at print-time.

The new automated method of controlling BarTender is through TCP/IP socket connectivity. Software developers and integrators can develop code in other programs to establish a remote socket connection, transmit label data, and automatically launch BarTender print jobs. Because TCP/IP communication is supported by numerous operating systems, it does not matter if users are running applications on AS/400, Linux, UNIX, AIX, or Windows.

Seagull Scientific claims to be the only label software company making label printer drivers that fully support the Windows Print Spooler. This includes new capabilities for the display of ribbon, label, ready, and other status information. Seagull says this gives BarTender a usability advantage over other label software because users can view and manage print jobs using the standard Windows Print Manager that they are already familiar with, instead of having to use a proprietary print manager. Other new features available in BarTender 8.0 include:

• RFID Gen 2 write-protection security features,
• Expanded options for reading XML print requests from Oracle's WMS and MSCA applications,
• Direct reading by BarTender of XML script,
• XSL style sheet support for automatic conversion from any XML format into the form readable by BarTender,
• New list box options in the BarTender forms designer allow creation of more sophisticated print-time and data-entry windows,
• Support for import of dozens of additional graphic format types, including GIF, and
• Improved support for CMYK-encoded JPEG graphics.

A working Trial Edition is available for free download at www.seagullscientific.com. Brochures and a variety of technical white papers are also available for download.