Attaching barcodes to engineering drawings is not a new idea.  Many engineering organizations do so to help manage their database of drawings.  However, attaching barcodes to a drawing after printing the drawing creates an extra step which can be a tedious process.  Now you can create barcodes with DraftSight and print them directly on your drawings.

Prerequisites:

i.  If you have a LAN or IT Administrator, you might need their administrative privilege to install additional fonts.
 

Instructions:

Obtaining the barcode font:

Note that this tutorial uses the Code 39 barcode format which is widely available for free on the internet (also known as Alpha39, Code 3 of 9, Code 3/9, Type 39, USS Code 39, or USD-3); however, the same concept can be applied to other barcode formats such as UPC, ISBN, ISSN, CodeBar, etc if you have the available fonts.
 

1. Download the Code 39 truetype barcode font.  Most websites offer it for free such as this site:  http://www.barcodesinc.com/free-barcode-font/
   
   Note that the download from the link above contains a zip file.  You may have to use a file compression software such as WinZip to open the zipped file.
   
    
2. Go to the fonts directory in Control Panel > Fonts to install the Code 39 font.
   
   For Windows Vista, 7, or 8:
   
    i.  Click the Windows start logo in Windows Vista and 7 or bring up the Start Screen in Windows 8.
   ii.  Type fonts into the search box, then press the Enter key. See the figures below:
   

   For Windows XP:

   iii.  Click the Start button, then go to Control Panel > Fonts.  See the figure below for details.
   

3. Open the downloaded compressed file containing the fonts.
4. To install the fonts, drag and drop the FRE3OF9X.TTF and FREE3OF9.TTF fonts from the zip file into the fonts directory as shown in the figure below:

   Note that the FRE3OF9X.TTF is the extended version of the Code 39 format which includes all ASCII characters.

   

5. Launch DraftSight.
6. To create a barcode, type NOTE in the command line followed by hitting the Enter key.
7. Specify your corners of the note box.
8. After the Note Formatting toolbar appears, proceed to type in the values of the barcode using regular font.  This will allow you to see what you are typing prior to changing the font.
   
   Note:  It is very important that you start and end a Code 39 barcode with an asterisk as shown below. 
    
9. Now highlight the text then click the drop-down menu to change the font to "Free 3 of 9" or "Free 3 of 9 Extended" as shown below:
   
10. Modify the rest of the note properties and when complete, click the green checkmark button.  Your barcode should now be complete.
11. Should your barcode reader have difficulty reading the barcode due to the line space, use the Note Formatting options to decrease/increase line spacing size, etc.
12. At the same time, should you need to increase the vertical scale of the barcode, you must first convert the barcode to a block.  Use the MAKEBLOCK command to convert the barcode text to a block.
    
13. Use the INSERTBLOCK command to insert the barcode.  Change the value of the vertical scale to your needs.  When done, click OK to insert the block into your drawing.  The example below was created using a Y: scale of 3.
    
    Additional Tips:
    i.  Create a TextStyle for the barcode font to simplify future cases
    ii. Use a free smartphone app to read the barcodes