LiveCycle Designer 8 and BarCodes

Depending on the type of information your client is storing in the barcode, they may be able to use some of the standard barcodes that are provided in the Library palette's Barcode tab. The software-rendered ones will render nicely on the form.

What they can do then is set a Calculate script on the barcode which calculates the new value to be stored in the barcode depending on the values stored in the 4 other fields. The Calculate event is fired every time the value of any dependent field on the form changes so the barcode's value will update automatically as the value of those 4 fields changes.

For example, place a "Code 3 of 9" barcode on a form, along with two numeric fields. In the barcode's Calculate event (using the Script Editor palette), use the following statement:

NumericField1.rawValue + NumericField2.rawValue;

This will set the barcode's value to the sum of the values in the two numeric fields. Preview the form and watch the barcode as you enter values into the numeric fields: it'll automatically update.

You shouldn't need a license to do this. Just a barcode scanner that reads "Code 3 of 9" barcodes.

If you want to store form data in the barcode, then you may be interested in Adobe LiveCycle's Barcoded Form technology which comes with the "Paper Forms Barcode" object in the Library palette. This barcode technology will actually encode real form data such that you can use a 2D barcode scanner to read it back-in when the form has been filled electronically, printed, signed and mailed back, for example. For this, you would need to purchase additional LiveCycle software.