I have heard of a store's point of sale system being able to scan a driver's license using a regular magnetic strip card reader and have the name / address automatically fill in to their system.

I would like to do this for our store!

Here is what results from a scan of my drivers license into TextEdit (information altered to protect my identity)

%MNOAK GROVE^MARK DONALD LARSON^1234 STREET NAME DR S?

;012345678901234567=01234567890123?

Has anyone ever scripted this into FileMaker? Would I have to pay attention to different states' formats or are they all the same?

Disclaimer - TokenWorks Makes the IDWedgeBT Drivers License Scanner which is compatible with FileMaker.  If this sort of post is not appropriate, please delete or reclassify.

 

There is a new ID Scanner which works with FileMaker called IDWedgeBT.  It scans drivers licenses from all 50 states and most Canadian Provinces, and Military IDs parses out first, middle, last, address, city, state, zip, date of birth, date of expiration, drivers license number, and gender and  then types the information into the active form.  It works with ipods, iphones, ipads running FileMaker Go and with FileMaker pro as long as the laptop/desktop has a BlueTooth interface.   Watch this youtube video showing IDWedgeBT scanning drivers licenses into FileMaker Go running on an iPad.  The application we developed accepts scan data, searches the database for a customer record, and either updates the visit history or creates a new customer record.  It also captures mobile marketing information.  See  http://youtu.be/Zn65AHdTKRc       

 

There is no software to load on the target system.  IDWedgeBT has drivers license, credit card, 1D barcode and Magnetic Stripe parsing code embedded in the hardware and has user defined scripts to "type" this data directly into the form.  It becomes a HID (human interface device)  keyboard when paired so there is no drivers to load.   For the app we show in the demo, we configured IDWedgeBT to type in all the fields into a text box at the top of the form and then parse out each field, search and update the database.  See the IDWedgeBT product  page for additional details.

 

If your store system has one page or form, where you'd like to scan a drivers license and populate the person's name, address, city, state, zip, DL number, and/or Gender AND it has a USB port which would a Bluetooth dongle (or has Bluetooth built in), then IDWedgeBT would be able to autofill your form.  In the next few months, there will be a version which is hardwared (direct USB HID keyboard interface).  If you have questions, please see the product page above.