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# Poor quality barcodes in raster-only editing programs (Photoshop, Paint)

> Fix blurry or unreadable barcodes in Photoshop, Paint, and other image editors when you paste barcodes from B-Coder Pro.

When cutting and pasting barcodes from B-Coder Pro into other programs, the best graphics format to use is the Windows Metafile format. Metafile images are device independent, scalable images that consist of drawing instructions used internally by Windows to reproduce an image in a manner that uses the highest resolution of the device that the image is being printed on. Because most printers have a much higher resolution than most computer monitors, the printed version of a Metafile will almost always have a much higher degree of detail than the same image when it is displayed on your computer's monitor. Bitmaps, on the other hand, do not automatically use the highest resolution possible when printed, and therefore the printed output of a bitmap will retain the same (lower) quality as that of your monitor.

When you paste a Metafile barcode produced by B-Coder Pro into a graphics or drawing program that only has the capability of working with bitmap files (.BMP) such as the **PaintBrush** program that comes with Windows, your barcode will be automatically converted from a Windows Metafile format to a bitmap format. During this conversion process, the barcode will most likely be deformed and thus it may be unreadable when it is eventually printed. A possible solution to this problem is to increase the Narrow Bar Width value and avoid the use of any scaling features in the target application (such as SHRINK & GROW in PaintBrush). Acceptable barcodes can be produced with these types of programs but their output should always be tested for readability.


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