Automating ZIP Code Lookups in Your Application

ZIP Express is a Windows based software utility allowing easy lookup of U.S. ZIP Codes and their associated cities, states, counties, area codes, time zones and current time. The power of ZIP Express goes well beyond this by providing the ability to read a ZIP Code from your application or the clipboard and pasting information directly into your program or copying it to the clipboard in just about any format that you desire.

Using ZIP Express you can ...

• Enter a ZIP Code and get City and State
• Read a ZIP Code from a field and get City, State, County, and Area Code
• Read a ZIP Code from the clipboard
• Output the data in a custom format
• Automatically enter City, State and other information into another program
• Assign HotKeys
• Run on any Windows computer

Enter a ZIP Code and get City and State

Define a HotKey and set the ZIP Code Source to Key It In. When you press the HotKey you defined, a small dialog box will pop up. Enter a ZIP Code into the dialog box and ZIP Express will return the City, State and other information for that ZIP Code.

Read a ZIP Code from a field and get City, State, County, and Area Code

If the ZIP Code resides in an edit box (such as a field in a database or a single entry in an address management package) then the answer is Yes. To make it work, you set up a HotKey. The HotKey specifies what keys you will press to invoke ZIP Express, the information that should be returned to your program and how ZIP Express is to obtain the original ZIP Code to look up. In the Modify HotKey window, you will need to select the ZIP Code Source as "From Calling Program" and the ZIP Code Output as "Into Calling Program". The result: Place the cursor on the edit box containing the ZIP Code in your program. When you press the hot key, the edit box will be scanned for a valid ZIP Code. If found, the resulting information will be typed right into your program. If the ZIP Code is invalid, a message will appear indicating so and nothing will be typed into your program.

Note: When using the From Calling Program option, ZIP Express uses something called a Windows Control. The Windows Control must be defined in the program you are using. ZIP Express has no control over this. Not all programs define a Windows Control for the specific field where the ZIP Code is stored. For these programs, even though a valid ZIP Code is entered and highlighted, the "From Calling Program" option will not work. In these cases you will need to use the From Clipboard, Key It In, Copy Highlighted, or Highlight and Copy options.

Read a ZIP Code from the clipboard

Yes. There are several options.

1. Define a HotKey and set the ZIP Code Source to From Clipboard. To use, highlight the ZIP Code in the application, manually copy the ZIP Code into the clipboard by pressing Ctrl+C, and then press the HotKey to initiate the lookup.
2. Define a HotKey and set the ZIP Code Source to Copy Highlighted. To use, highlight the ZIP Code in the application and press the HotKey to look up the data.
3. Define a HotKey and set the ZIP Code Source to Highlight and Copy. To use, put the mouse cursor in the field where the ZIP Code is located and press the HotKey.

All of these options place the ZIP Code on the Windows clipboard and then use the clipboard to look up the City, State, and County information.

Output the data in a custom format

Use the following options in the Modify Format dialog to customize the output to create any format that you desire.

1. Select from a list of data to include such as Area Code, City, County, Daylight Saving Time flag, Long State, State, Time Zone or ZIP Code.
2. Insert navigation keystrokes such as Tab, Backtab, arrow keys, End, Home, Delete, and Enter to format the output to match your application.
3. Enter free-form text to add sentences, labels, and paragraphs.

Easily create whatever format your application needs.

Automatically enter City, State and other information into another program

You can automatically enter data and commands directly into your applications via HotKeys. To do this you will need to define a HotKey. The HotKey specifies what keys you will press to invoke ZIP Express, the information that should be returned to your word processor and how ZIP Express is to obtain the original ZIP Code to look up. In the Modify HotKey window, you will need to select the ZIP Code Source as "Key It In" and the ZIP Code Output as "Into Calling Program". The result: when you press the HotKey while in your word processor, a small ZIP Code input box will appear on the screen. Type in the ZIP Code you want to look up and immediately the resulting information will be typed right into your word processor where the cursor resides in your word processor.

By entering common navigation keystrokes such as Tab, Backtab, Home, End, Arrow Right, Arrow Left, Arrow Up, Arrow Down and Enter into your HotKey, you can have ZIP Express move the cursor to the appropriate locations in your application and type in the city, state, county and other information.

If the ZIP Code is invalid, a message will appear indicating so and nothing will be placed into your word processor.

Assign HotKeys

ZIP Express allows you to automatically paste ZIP Code information directly into your Windows applications via HotKeys. Over 80 HotKeys may be assigned commands. For example, press the CTRL+SHIFT+J keys while in your word processor and watch a ZIP Code entry box appear. Type in your ZIP Code and suddenly the city, state and ZIP Code are typed right into your word processor where the cursor resides.

Set up another HotKey to scan the ZIP Code in your address database and watch the cursor back up 3 fields and type in the city, state and county.

Run on any Windows computer

Running ZIP Express on a Windows Terminal Server or Citrix server requires a license for each user. It does not run as a service and therefore is not designed for high-volume use on a server. However, ZIP Express will run on individual Windows computers.

If you need ZIP Code data on your high-volume server you may want to consider purchasing a ZIP Express Data license. This license allows you to export the ZIP Code and Area Code data from ZIP Express for use in applications on your servers.