How to handle special characters in Code128 using zxing.net - vb.net

Question

I created a SSRS Report which contains a few Code128 Barcodes. The Barcodes are generated using the latest zxing.net library. I would like to include tabs (char(9)) in an Code128 Barcode. But it fail with the following exception message:
System.ArgumentException: Bad character in input:
Needless to say that it works like a charm without the tabulator character.
The GetBarCodeHorizontal is used in the report to generate the barcodes. However, for testing purpose i wrapped it into a visual studio vb project:
Class MainWindow
Public Function GetBarCodeHorizontal(ByVal s As String, ByVal width As Integer) As Byte()
Dim writer As New ZXing.BarcodeWriter()
Dim ms As System.IO.MemoryStream = New System.IO.MemoryStream()
writer.Format = ZXing.BarcodeFormat.CODE_128
writer.Options = New ZXing.Common.EncodingOptions
writer.Options.Width = width
writer.Options.Height = 60
writer.Options.PureBarcode = False
'writer.Options.Hints.Add(ZXing.EncodeHintType.CHARACTER_SET, "UTF-8")
Dim bmp As System.Drawing.Bitmap = writer.Write(s)
bmp.Save(ms, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Png)
Dim imagedata As Byte()
imagedata = ms.GetBuffer()
Return imagedata
End Function
Private Sub MainWindow_OnLoaded(sender As Object, e As RoutedEventArgs)
Try
Dim barCodeHorizontal = GetBarCodeHorizontal("3999999 80 1XXXXXX8 r1XX3", 200)
Catch ex As Exception
Console.WriteLine(ex)
End Try
End Sub
End Class
Questions:
How can i solve this problem?
Is this a limitation of the zxing library?
Is there any suitable workaround (or maybe even another library)?

Answer 1

I ended up with another (free) library which turns out to work very well.
There is also a tutorial how to embed barcodes into SSRS for this specific library.
For those of interest here is my code to create the barcodes:
Public Function GetBarcode(ByVal text As String, ByVal barcodeWidth As Integer, ByVal barcodeHeight As Integer) As Byte()
Dim b As System.Drawing.Bitmap
Dim bar As New BarcodeLib.Barcode
bar.Alignment = BarcodeLib.AlignmentPositions.CENTER
bar.IncludeLabel = False
b = bar.Encode(BarcodeLib.TYPE.CODE128, text, barcodeWidth, barcodeHeight)
Dim bitmapData As Byte() = Nothing
Using ms As New System.IO.MemoryStream()
b.Save(ms, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Png)
bitmapData = ms.ToArray()
End Using
Return bitmapData
End Function
The barcode data comes directly from the query as shown here:
SELECT MilkrunID, Code, Quantity, Batch, PickLocation, Code + CHAR(9) + CAST(Quantity AS NVARCHAR(20)) + CHAR(9) + Batch + CHAR(9) + PickLocation AS Barcode
FROM Tbl_ReportData_ProductionReplenishment_MilkrunSummary
char(9) creates a Tab.