Visio 2010 - Barcodes in a drawing

Embed a barcode control into a Visio 2010 (x86) document

This instructions show you how to embed the ActiveBarcode control into your document. You can automate the control using a macro. If you just want to add a static picture of a barcode, please use the ActiveBarcode Application instead and transfer the picture of the barcode with copy/paste into your document.

First launch Visio and create a new document or open an already existing document.

Make sure that you have configured your Visio, that the "Developer" tab is shown in the ribbon. If not, go to the Visio Options:

Select "Customize Ribbon" and activate the option "Developer". Then close the option window.

Now you can embed the ActiveBarcode control element into your Visio Document. Select Developer tab. Click on the button "More controls" from the range of "Controls".

A dialog box appears on the screen:

Select "ActiveBarcode" now and click "Ok". Now a barcode will be created inside your document. This will be a standard barcode of EAN-128 type. This is the default type. You can change this to any barcode type supported by ActiveBarcode: Codabar, Code 25 Industrial, Code 25 Interleaved, Code 39, Code 39 Extended, Code 93, Code 93 Extended, Code 128, Data Matrix, DUN-14, EAN-2, EAN-5, EAN-8, EAN-13, EAN-14, EAN-18, EAN-99, EAN 128, EAN-Velocity, GS1-128, GTIN-8, GTIN-12, GTIN-13, GTIN-14, Identcode, ISBN-10, ISBN-13, ISBN-13 Dual, Bookland, ISSN, ISMN, ITF-14, JAN, Leitcode, MSI, NVE, PDF417, PostNet, PZN, Royal Mail SCC-14, SSCC-18, UCC-128, UPC-A and UPC-E

Now you can modify this barcode. You can change the type, text, colors etc. For this click inside the barcode with the right mouse button. A pop up menu will open: 

Select "ActiveBarcode-Object" and then "Properties...". The property dialog of ActiveBarcode will open. Here you can modify the barcode as you like.

Alternatively you can use the property dialog of Visio:

The ActiveBarcode Control is 32bit and can be used with the 32bit (x86) version of Office 2010 only.

Microsoft itself recommends to install the 32bit (x86) instead of the 64bit (x64) version of the Office 2010 package. This is valid, even if you use a 64bit (x64) operating system.