NCR RealPOS User Manual - Pacesetter

Chapter 4: Operating the Scanner 

4-7 

PACESETTER 

NCR has continually improved its PACESETTER technology used on NCR scanner products. 

Starting out as PACESETTER, it progressed to PACESETTER Plus, and then to 

PACESETTER III. Vendors and printers regularly supply products with overprinted, 

underprinted, or truncated bar codes to the market. Some labels have missing margins. Others 

may be printed around the corner of packages or on media that wrinkles when picked up. 

PACESETTER addresses the problems caused by these unreadable labels. PACESETTER III 

is standard on all NCR scanner products. 

PACESETTER Plus

PACESETTER Plus determines what is wrong with a bar code label, fixes the data, and then 

transfers the information to the host terminal. It provides information on possible bar code 

printer problems but is not a bar code specification conformity verifier. 

The three modes of PACESETTER Plus operation are summarized in the following 

paragraphs. 

Mode 1–Inquiry 

PACESETTER Plus can be used as a management tool by store personnel and chain 

management to monitor and report the status of label readability. Tally counters are kept for 

the following. 

  Good reads 

  No read due to lack of full label (missing bars or folded label) 

  Good reads with overprinted bars 

  Good reads with underprinted bars 

  Missing margins 

  Missing print lines 

Mode 2–Demonstration Mode 

In Mode 2, the scanner is offline. Each subsequent scan of a bar code causes the scanner to 

indicate the status of label readability. The scanner recognizes missing bars in labels, highly 

overprinted or underprinted labels, missing margins, or a “no read” condition. 

Mode 3–Operations 

Mode 3 is the normal operating mode. The scanner can be programmed to add PACESETTER 

Plus information to the decoded UPC/EAN data. This information describes the label 

readability. However, the host terminal software must be capable of receiving the extra data. 

The host terminal software should enable this at a regular interval (for example, Cashier Sign 

On) and check for the presence of the data if enabled.