Check if a generated document can have a unique bar code for tracking.

Question

Is it possible to check if a generated document can have a unique bar code for tracking?......We r using the Adobe Central Output Server 5.5 version on windows xp........

Answer 1

I know of nothing built into the software that is specifically for the purpose of generating a unique value.
External of the server there are a couple things that might work.
1) The source of the data file could create a field in the file that contains a unique value that would be the value for the bar code field. For example, the source program could access a database (Access, SQL, whatever) and grab a numeric field for the value while incrementing the field for the next time. If it isn't practical for the source program to do this, then a "custom agent" could be written that would run prior to printing the form that would do this database access and add the field to the data file before passing it on to the print agent.
2) You could reference the built-in date & time variables (see the Print Agent manual for $date & $time) to use as the value for the variable to be the value for the bar code field. Depending on how long your print job takes to process you could use the time variable that includes the hundredths of a second or not. For example, having the following in the data file:
b ^field UniqueBarcode
b @$date1.@$time3.
would result in a value of
b 05021506511429
for the year (05), month (02), day (15), hour (06), minute (51), second (14), and hundredths (29) of the date & time I typed this in. If you wanted the millenium & century you could just hard-code it by placing "20" in front of the @$date1. reference. Of course, depending on the particular bar code you use, a 14 or 16 digit bar code could be too long for what you want.
One caution with this method, though. If your Central server is set up for processing multiple instances of Central, it would be possible to get duplicates since two (or more) jobs, running in different instances, could start at the same time.