Use Barcode Scanner for Parcel Management System

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1

Hi Guys,

I have been playing around with one of the barcode scanners and thought to integrate it with a parcel management system I’ve been using. Basically at the moment the system uses an excel workbook with some data, email addresses and runs a Visual Basic Macro on the front end so it looks a bit more user friendly but it’s slow and uses a laptop so is a bit cumbersome. The system automatically emails the recipient of a parcel once it’s delivered to our mail room. I work in a big college in Oxford by the way.
My idea is to use a Raspberry Pi, RPi Touchscreen, and a barcode scanner. At first I thought it would easy to make some alterations by running the excel doc in Office Libre in the Pi but it won’t run the version of excel so I thought about starting again. Any ideas would be welcome…

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Hey there! What you’re describing is pretty much our exact setup here at Pimoroni. :-)

In the post room we have Raspberry Pi’s hooked up to the 7" Official Touchscreen in our frame. We use the same barcode scanners that we sell in our store to “beep” packages through the shipping stages.

Our system is based on console mode Python scripts. You scan the parcel, the screen shows the details (and any notes). You then confirm by either scanning the code again or hitting enter on the keyboard. We have different systems setup for checking mail in, generating UPS labels, etc…

3

Sounds like a great use of all your goodies!
I’d be interested in the scripts you are using if you care to share?