Barcode not displayed in Adobe Reader

There are two reasons why a barcode would gray out. The first reason, and the most important, is that the barcoded forms technology needs to be licensed via Reader Extensions. If you try to fill in a form that updates the barcode at runtime (during calculate and not initialize) and it has not been Reader Extended properly, it will gray out.

The second reason is due to the fact that the barcode grays out automatically when it is over capacity. Even if you have a small number of fields, on average with proper error correction you're looking at no more than 900 characters in a large barcode. You have a limited amount of space to work with so if your form is properly extended, then reduce the data or add another barcode.

Hi, the original specifications from Symbol stated that you could hold 2710 characters. That said, this would be NO error correction and only numeric values. So technically not viable.

With proper sizing and error correction you'll be looking at around 900 characters.

My presentation here is a little dated, but still valid if you'd like to find out more about how storage works: https://my.adobeconnect.com/barcodedformselearningpdf417bestpractices/.

To add to Lee's comments, barcode capacity in a form designed with Designer, can be impacted by compression, or lack there of, and the type of data being included, i.e. XML vs. text, and also whether collections (of fields) are being used or not. Make sure to set maxChar limits on your text fields that are included in the barcode dataset. Otherwise, you could reach capcity quickly even for a small amount of fields on a form. Including field labels in the barcode data can also impact capacity.

to add more on above.

make sure that you are using format as "delimited" not XML and also avoid including label in barcode.