Using Morovia 2D Fontware products in Microsoft Reporting Service

Procedure 1. Adding DataMatrix barcodes in Report Designer

1. If you are adding barcodes into an existing project, skip to step 8. Now we start a new project. From Visual Studio, select File | New | Project. In the Project Types list box, click on Business Intelligence Projects. In the Templates box, select Report Project Wizard. Give the project a name and click OK.
   
2. On the next screen, the Report Wizard asks for the data source. For simplicity we use the NorthWind database here, which is installed by default when installing SQL Server. You can type the connection string in the edit box directly, or you can have the wizard fill out for you by clicking the Edit... and select the appropriate choices from the Data Link Properties... dialog followed.
   

   After you finish constructing the connection string, click Next.

3. At this step, the Report Wizard asks for a query string which will be used to populate the data set in the report. You can enter something like Select * from Customers; or you can click on Edit to pop up Query Builder to build the query. Make sure that you include CustomerID in the result set.
   
4. Next, select the type of the report (tabular or matrix). Click Next.
5. Now select the fields which will be displayed in the report. In the Available fields list box, use your mouse and CTRL key, select CustomerID, CompanyName and ContactName fields. Click on the Details< to move them to the right.
6. Follow the instructions to complete the wizard.
7. On the left side, switch to Solution View. Click on the Reports node to find the report just created. Double click on the report file name to bring it up to the right side. You will notice that three tabs appear on the right view, and the current position is at Layout tab. In the report, a filed name is expressed something like Fields!CustomerID.Value.
   
8. We now start to add a new column to hold the barcodes. Click on the Company title once, the report responds by showing a header row on the top. Right click on the header row, and select Insert Column at the right. Give the new column a title “Barcode”.
9. To define the value for the column, you need to tell that you are going to use the the assembly from Morovia. When the current view is the report, the Report menu is visible on top of Visual Studio. Select Report followed by Report Properties to bring up the Report Properties dialog.
10. Click on the reference tab. In the top list box, click on the button. Click on Browse button once to locate the assembly: Morovia.SupportTools.ReportService.dll.
    
11. Click on the General tab (or you can click >>Basic button to see a simple form. Move the cursor to the Value edit box. Enter the following:

    =Morovia.SupportTools.ReportService.
    FontEncoder2D.DataMatrixEncode2(Fields!CustomerID.Value, 26) 

    The name is a little long. But we are working in the .Net world. Make sure that you entered them correct.

    The last part of the definition is the function name. Here we use DataMatrixEncode2 to make all barcodes the same size. Here 26 is the DataMatrixTargetSizeID (if you do not know the meaning of this parameter, see the DataMatrix Fontware Reference Manual). If uniformed size is not required, you can also use the DataMatrixEncode function.

12. Click on the Font tab. From the font list, select MRV DataMatrix. Click OK to dismiss the dialog.
13. Click on the Preview tab to view the report. The report should show as below:
    
14. If you see a different shape rather than a rectangle, or just portions of a barcode, the width or the height of the column is too small for the barcode. Go back to the Layout view and use your mouse to make appropriate adjustments.
15. After you are satified with the report, click Build | Deploy Solution, to deploy the solution to the Report Server.