If you are using a bar code font, you cannot just select the text in
the cell and change its font to a bar code font and expect to get a
readable bar code. All bar code symbologies require special start and
stop codes and most also require a check character that is calculated
and appended to the symbol's main data.
The Code 39 symbology is the only one that I know of that does not use
a check digit however it does require start and stop codes which are
usually represented by asterisks. If you put an asterisk at the
beginning and at the end of the data that you want to apply a Code 39
bar code font to, the asterisks will also cause Excel to treat the
data as a text string and therefore not format it as a number. You
will also get readable bar codes with the correct start and stop
patterns.

In general bar code fonts are not only tricky to use, they also
produce relatively poor quality bar codes. If you want to produce high
quality bar codes in Excel, Access or any other program without having
to write macros or monkey with your data, the best tool to use is a
good bar code ActiveX control. The best one on the market is available
from the following web site:
http://www.taltech.com/products/activex_barcodes.html




On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 05:11:03 -0800, PHELM1
wrote:

How do you stop Excel from suppressing the leading zeros in a cell used for a
barcode that is created using a cell that has them?