Brainstorming: Displaying and printing barcodes - what is the best way?

[corgano]

I have seen many different threads about generating barcodes, displaying them, and printing them. However at this point I am completely torn with which method to use. I am making a software that lets the user scan items, enter in information and save it in a SQLite database. For my purposes, I want to be able to display the barcode with number underneath in a similar way to most other controls eg GuiCtrlCreateBarcode( barcodenumber, x, y, width, height ). I also want to be able to print the barcode and have it be readable by the same scanner - The most successful encoding I've found is code128. Here is what I have found so far:

• This thread has nice code that saves the output as images
  • Printing is easy and scans properly
  • Displaying the image on a pic control makes it easy to set it's x/y/width/height
    But..
  • The code does not let you directly specify the width / height, so displayed image on GUI is ALWAYS skewed.
  • Getting output images the right size with that code is very difficult
  • I cannot find any examples of drawing barcodes to an image that let you specify width / height
  • This example 
• Several threads use Static controls
  • Look very nice on GUI, easy to get explicit position and size
    But...
  • I know of no way to turn a bunch of static controls into something printable
  • I didn't find any examples that had numbers at the bottom of the barcode
• The third solution I found was using a barcode font
  • Can look nice, depending on font
  • Shouldn't be hard to print
    But..
  • Depends on additional font being installed
  • Some fonts don't scan correctly
  • How do you specify a width / height of an area you want the barcode to fill when using a font?

I'm really at a loss as to how to move forward. Maybe there's an example I missed that is better suited to what I could find? PErhaps someone has experience writing barcode scanning / generating / printing software and can share the experiences. Can someone bounce a few ideas back and forth with me on the best way to proceed?

 

Edited May 26, 2015 by corgano