This tip shows you how to generate a barcode in Excel that will enable you to track stock, sales, purchases or fixed assets.
Applies To: Microsoft® Excel® for Windows 2010, 2013, and 2016.
Excel has no built-in functionality to generate a barcode. However, this is easily achievable by simply downloading and installing a font.
This tip will enable you to generate a barcode in Excel by using 39 barcodes. Code 39, or Code 3 of 9 as it is sometimes referred to, is the most used barcode and is scannable by every barcode scanner. It can encode 26 upper-case letters, 10 digits and 7 special characters.
To generate a barcode, follow these steps:
- Download and install the free barcode font from idautomation. This is a fully-functional, freeware font. Please refer to the free product section of their license agreement for additional information.
- Once the font has been installed, select the cell in which you want to generate the barcode.
- Enter the value for the barcode.
- Change the font from your standard font style to “IDAutomationHC39M Free Version”.
- Once the font has been changed, the text will be converted into a barcode.
This is an easy way to not only generate a barcode, but also one that can be printed and scanned.
