Every Linear Barcode on One Page

A workshop, a warehouse and a till do not read the same stripes. The label on a storage bay is Code 39, the outer case a shop takes delivery of is ITF-14, a blood bag is Codabar, a magazine carries its issue number in a small block beside its main code. A label printed in the wrong family is a label the scanner at the far end does not read at all, and somebody types the number in by hand.

Each code on this page sits in a box with the empty margin its family needs on either side, and every bar is a whole number of points wide, so each edge lands on a whole dot of the printer instead of blurring between two. Under each code is the text a scanner reads back from it, so the page can be held under a scanner and checked line by line.

What This Example Shows

  • Code 39 twice, once with its check character, then Code 93 holding the same text in less room.
  • ITF-14 for the outer case, Codabar, a small UPC-E and GS1 DataBar.
  • A magazine and a book, each with the two-digit or five-digit block printed beside its main code.

The Source Code, Complete

Nothing is left out and nothing is simplified: this is the program exactly as it runs, for the developer who uses this library. The third is the description itself: a plain list of what the page has to say, which is what the service is sent.

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The Document Itself

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Every Linear Barcode on One Page, first page
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Examples Near This One

Code 128 and Retail Barcodes

Stripes for the two jobs that want them: Code 128 for any text at all, and the three a till reads — EAN-13, UPC-A, EAN-8 — each with its last digit worked out rather than typed.

QR codes

The code an invoice, a boarding pass or a label ends up wanting, drawn into the document rather than fetched as a picture and pasted in.

Data Matrix Codes

The code industry marks small parts with: still readable at sizes where a QR code has given up, on a circuit board or a phial in a laboratory tray.

PDF417 Codes

The code on identity documents and shipping papers: it carries far more text than a row of bars, and it survives a laser scanner dragged across it.

Aztec Codes

The code on rail and airline tickets, and the reason is room: it needs no band of white around it, which is the first thing trimmed off a layout that has run tight.

Codes That Name Their Character Set

Nine codes whose bytes say which character set they are written in, so Greek comes back as Greek and Cyrillic as Cyrillic, whatever set the scanner would have fallen back on.

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