Get correct barcode character

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Hi, I've a problem with barcode readers: if I have a barcode reader with setted country USA and the input language on my PC (Windows 10) is Italian, when I scan a code with special characters (like \ / : ) I'll see at video other characters (like ù - ç).

What I have tried:

If I install and change my input method to USA, it reads characters correctly.
Otherwise, if I change country on barcode reader in Italy and leave input method on PC Italian it reads characters correctly.

I can't install USA input method dynamically on customer's PCs and I can't know how barcode readers will be programmed so there's a simple solution to get the correct characters sequence without change input methods and barcode reader's settings??

Posted 5-Aug-20 3:29am

MIRKO PIEVANI

Updated 5-Aug-20 4:08am

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OriginalGriff · Answer 1 · 2020-08-05T04:08:00

Solution 1

Because most scanners come preconfigured to emulate a keyboard, you need to tell Windows what layout it expects to generate. That's not difficult: How to the change keyboard layout on Windows 10 | Windows Central[^] - you can do it for multiple keyboards so you have a UK one and a Spanish one for example.

Posted 5-Aug-20 4:08am

OriginalGriff

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MIRKO PIEVANI 5-Aug-20 10:35am

This can be the correct solution but I'm not allowed to install keyboards on customer's PC

OriginalGriff 5-Aug-20 11:07am

Then your only alternative is to talk to the scanner manufacturer: they may be able to help, or at least tell you how to set it to produce "lead in" and "tail out" codes so you can tell what data needs to be "reprocessed" to produce the right codes.

The problem is that "keyboard input" is just that: Windows doesn't store any "Markers" with the keystrokes to say "it came from here" - so you can't tell a scanner code from a typed code without lead in / tail out. And if you can't tell what the source was, you're potentially going to mess up everything else they try to type!