How to Add Barcode to Documents in Alfresco

When the world is heading towards digitization, a barcode is no longer a new term for the enterprises. Tracking and storing information about goods, from individual items to large stocks of millions of items, barcode has provided ease and relief to the system. Barcode allows you to accurately track large stocks and also look up any single piece of merchandise in a matter of second. There are many other cases where the barcode is applied to the documents. We, at Tridhya Tech, have come up with the solution to add the barcode to the document stored in the Alfresco system.

Here is the technical approach on how to generate a barcode in Alfresco. If you want to explore the QR code, then please visit this link.

1. Java action – To allow users to generate and decide where to place barcode in the document
2. Evaluator – To show action only on PDF documents (share side class)
3. A Java PDF library (iText) – Provides classes and functions to edit PDF documents

1.Java Action

• Create a Java class with following code at alfresco/src/main/java

 public class BarcodePdfActionExecuter extends ActionExecuterAbstractBase {
      private static Log logger = LogFactory.getLog(BarcodePdfActionExecuter.class);
      private ServiceRegistry serviceRegistry;
      public static final String PARAM_PAGE_NO = "page-no";
      public void setServiceRegistry(ServiceRegistry serviceRegistry) {
            this.serviceRegistry = serviceRegistry;
}
@Override
protected void addParameterDefinitions(List paramList) {
       for (String s : new String[] {PARAM_PAGE_NO}) {
           paramList.add(new ParameterDefinitionImpl(s, DataTypeDefinition.TEXT, true, getParamDisplayLabel(s)));
       }
}
@Override
protected void executeImpl(Action action, NodeRef actionedUponNodeRef) {
       logger.debug("Page No " + action.getParameterValue(PARAM_PAGE_NO));

       String barcodeString = "abcd0001";
    
       ContentWriter writer =
 serviceRegistry.getContentService().getWriter(actionedUponNodeRef,
           ContentModel.PROP_CONTENT, true);

       
       ContentReader reader =
serviceRegistry.getContentService().getReader(actionedUponNodeRef,
       
       ContentModel.PROP_CONTENT);
       int pageNo = Integer.parseInt((String) 
action.getParameterValue(PARAM_PAGE_NO));
       try {
       PdfReader pdfReader = new PdfReader(inputStream);
       PdfStamper stamper = new PdfStamper(pdfReader, outputStream);
       PdfContentByte over = stamper.getOverContent(1);
      
       Barcode128 barcode128 = new Barcode128();
       barcode128.setCode(barcodeString);
       barcode128.setCodeType(Barcode.CODE128);
       Image code128Image = barcode128.createImageWithBarcode(over, null, null);
       code128Image.setAbsolutePosition(10,10);
       over.addImage(code128Image);
       stamper.close();
       pdfReader.close();
} catch (ContentIOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
     e.printStackTrace();
} catch (DocumentException e) {
     e.printStackTrace();
     }
   }
}

• Create a separate at

alfresco/src/main/amp/config/alfresco/module/${project-name}/context/ to register action class.

• Create an extension module at

share/src/main/amp/config/alfresco/web-extension/site-data/extensions/ in separate or existing xml file.

icon=”barcode” type=”javascript”
label=”alfresco.doclib.action.barcodePdf.label”>
onActionFormDialog
action
barcode-pdf
create
{node.nodeRef}
alfresco.doclib.action.barcodePdf.msg.success
alfresco.doclib.action.barcodePdf.msg.failure
alfresco.barcodePdf.evaluator.checkPDFFileType

ID for the Repository Action that this form is associated with

label-id=”alfresco.doclib.action.barcodePdf.form.field.pageNo”>

• Create a properties file for Label at

share/src/main/amp/config/alfresco/web-extension/messages/

 alfresco.doclib.action.barcodePdf.label=Barcode Pdf
alfresco.doclib.action.barcodePdf.msg.success=Pdf have been barcoded.
alfresco.doclib.action.barcodePdf.msg.failure=Problem in barcoding Pdf, please contact Administrator
alfresco.doclib.action.barcodePdf.form.field.pageNo=Page Number

• You have to add images for the action icon at

share/src/main/amp/web/components/documentlibrary/actions/
2.Evaluator

• Create a separate with following code at

share/src/main/amp/config/alfresco/web-extension/

parent=”evaluator.doclib.action.isMimetype”>

application/pdf

3. A Java PDF library (iText)

• iText Library

Add the following dependency to pom.xml to use this library.

com.itextpdf
itextpdf
5.0.6

Feel free to contact us if there is any help you need while executing this code.