Getting Started with BarTender
Welcome to BarTender!
Organizations around the world, from small business to the the world's largest companies, trust BarTender to help them meet evolving industry regulations and practices, with its ease of deployment and secure, configurable technology. We're couldn't be happier to have you joining this group.
As powerful as BarTender is, it’s sometimes hard to know just where to start. This series of videos will walk you through the most common tasks that new BarTender users need to accomplish.
Installing BarTender
If you haven't already done so, you should download the latest release for your version of BarTender. The download can take several minutes, depending on your internet connection.
Installing Drivers by Seagull™
Seagull Scientific makes drivers for thousands of printer models. When used with BarTender, they allow you to take advantage of special high-speed printing functions that are built right into your thermal printer.
Although this step is optional, we highly recommend using our printer drivers whenever possible. BarTender will work with any standard Windows driver, but you won't have access to enhanced performance options.
This video will show you how to download and install the drivers. You can download Drivers by Seagull™ here.
Getting around BarTender
BarTender has a familiar and intuitive user interface for designing simple and complex templates for printing labels, cards and more. In this video, you'll learn just how easy it is design your first templates using BarTender.
By the time this video is done, you'll know how to create new documents from scratch and configure a number different objects (text, barcodes, etc.).
Creating data entry forms
Now you know how to create static labels where data never changes, but, in the real world, data changes all the time. There are a number of ways to create these "dynamic" templates in BarTender.
The first option we'll cover is BarTender's data-entry forms. These forms can be used to input data right at print time. In this video you will learn about the different elements available for data entry form design, and how to use them.
Connecting to a database
Another popular method to print variable data is to connect your BarTender document to a database. At print-time, BarTender will automatically pull the information out of your database and print one, or more, items for each selected record in the database.
BarTender can connect to almost any database in the world including; Microsoft Excel, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Azure, Oracle, MySQL, and more!
In this video you will learn how to connect BarTender to an Excel document, link database fields to objects on the template, and select specific database records to print.
In this video
More Information
To get a detailed look at getting started with BarTender, download one of our manuals.
BarTender 2019
BarTender 2016
What's next?
We've only scratched the surface of what BarTender can do. You can continue your journey with BarTender by looking at advanced template design concepts, integrating BarTender with other applications, or browsing the community to converse with other BarTender users.
Here are some specific topics that you may find interesting:
- Frequent Question
- Working with templates
- Working with layers
- Overview of data sources
- Creating automatic serial numbers
- Using a static database filter
- Using a dynamic database filter
- Configuring a database record picker
- Managing user access
- Building a web service integration (recorded webinar)
- Support Center Home Page
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