Trouble scanning barcode into Excel « Chandoo.org - Learn Excel & Charting Online

Chandoo.org - Learn Excel & Charting Online - Forums » Ask an Excel Question

Trouble scanning barcode into Excel

(7 posts) (3 voices)

Started 8 months ago by j_sun
Latest reply from Luke M

Tags:

j_sun

Member
Joined: Feb '12
Posts: 35

Hi All,
Having trouble scanning the tracking number from a Stamps.com generated USPS label. It scans fine into Notepad and other apps with no apparent unprintable characters. When I scan into Excel, it only accepts the first 8 characters of the 30. I've got the fields formatted as Text and have turned off auto-fill.

Just really weird. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Jason

Posted 8 months ago #
Luke M

Excel Ninja
Joined: Nov '10
Posts: 4,278

Sounds like a strange one. Referencing here, are there some settings you need to change on the scanner itself?

Posted 8 months ago #
Hui

Excel Ninja
Joined: Jul '09
Posts: 5,053

Can you post what the code is and what you are receiving ?

Posted 8 months ago #
j_sun

Member
Joined: Feb '12
Posts: 35

The entire string is 420103149400111201080189898970
But only the first 8 characters are entered. We append a "Return" to the transmission but so the selected cell moves down.

Posted 8 months ago #
Hui

Excel Ninja
Joined: Jul '09
Posts: 5,053

J_Sun

I really don't know where to start with this one?

Have you tried seeing if word wrap is turned on in that cell, Ctrl 1, Alignment is Wrap Text ticked?

Try Drag the Row to make it higher and see if the rest of the number is hidden in there?

Is the cell a text cell or a numeric cell? Excel can only display 15 numbers but a lot longer text strings. Change the cell format to Text. Ctrl 1, Number, Text

I've run out of ideas...

Posted 8 months ago #
j_sun

Member
Joined: Feb '12
Posts: 35

Thanks Hui. Tried all of those and no resolution. Ended up opening the sheet on a different PC (both running Excel 2007) and it works perfectly.
Must be hardware related w/ the scanner.

Posted 8 months ago #
Luke M

Excel Ninja
Joined: Nov '10
Posts: 4,278

Thanks for letting us know j_sun. Like Hui, I was out of ideas and was curious as to what the final solution would end up being. =/

Posted 8 months ago #