Help me find a free palm-scanning software

November 7, 2007 8:48 AM

I'm working a project where I need to be able to physically inventory computer equipment. We have 4 Palm/Symbol barcode scanners, I'd like to be able to scan a barcode and produce a csv file. Everything that I find on google I need to pay for and configure extensively. I have neither approval to purchase anything, or time to figure out a program. Does anyone have any suggestions?
posted by TuxHeDoh to computers & internet (9 comments total)

With neither time nor money to invest, you'll have to do it the old way -- by hand.
posted by Malor at 9:00 AM on November 7, 2007

How much equipment do you need to scan? Is there anything else you're trying to produce beyond a comma separated list of barcodes?

Most Symbol barcode scanners should be able to scan directly into other programs, like Excel or Notepad. (0042491999111 <>
If you just scan a list, it shouldn't be too hard to convert it to a csv.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:01 AM on November 7, 2007

Whoops, accidentally threw in some html there. What I meant to say was that 0042491999111 is the barcode off a box of paperclips I just scanned at my desk using a Symbol scanner.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:02 AM on November 7, 2007

They're palm based scanners, so no connection to a pc, without the palm software.

So the time is less of an issue, then the money. I can't buy anything, I'm willing to give anything a shot.

I have close to 2000 pieces to inventory.
posted by TuxHeDoh at 9:12 AM on November 7, 2007

I think some scanners can be programmed by scanning a series of barcodes out of the owner's manual (not sure about your hardware, though.) While a lot of scanners are programmed in this way to append a carriage return or [enter] key to the end of the string they scan, you might be able to find a way to append a comma instead (depending on your equipment.) If you could do so, then you could scan away in some Palm notepad-type app, then export it to a PC and open it as a .csv.

Alternatively, if your scanner appends the return, you could scan a few barcodes into a textfile as a test, move that over to the PC, and find a freeware text editor that allows you to substitute commas for return characters. Or you could scan the whole inventory in (or again, maybe a test run first,) and look for someone who could run a perl one-liner over it and convert the return character to a comma that way.
posted by trondant at 10:24 AM on November 7, 2007

How would scanning barcodes result in a CSV file? Each record will have only 1 item.

Most untethered barcode guns that I've run across scan into a text file, each barcode on its own line.

If you are talking about collating the results of inventory, excel will do the job just fine. As for linking the actual barcode to the inventory information, you'll need some sort of DB access.
posted by mphuie at 11:43 AM on November 7, 2007

There's an extremely similar project with the same hardware (SPT 1800) that's been lurking at the back of my to-do list for months. I have not yet found a free program that will take input from the scanner and put it into a text file or spreadsheet. I played around a bit with a couple of free spreadsheets for Palms, and the problem is that they aren't equipped with the code for reading from the scanner; the information on how to listen for scanner input and read it in is freely available out there, but as far as I can figure, you-the-customer need to write it yourself if you're not buying from Wasp or any of the other big inventory houses.

I know this isn't what you want to hear, and I'll be just as glad as you if someone further downthread corrects me.
posted by nonane at 12:20 PM on November 7, 2007

nonane has it. This is a palm-device, that has a built in scanner, similar to what Fedex or oyur mailroom might use. The mailroom software was on these, but it won't work for what we need.

I did find a handheld barcode scanner that does act as regular input device... and found the software for it... so I'm working on that. Thanks all.
posted by TuxHeDoh at 12:43 PM on November 7, 2007

Saying you want a CSV file doesn't tell us anything.

What do you want in it?

What data do you have now?
posted by cmiller at 2:02 PM on November 7, 2007