Code 128 and retail barcodes
A page of barcodes, drawn as bars: Code 128 and the retail family, EAN-13, UPC-A, EAN-8.
PDF417 codes
A page of PDF417 codes, drawn as stacked bars.
A page of PDF417 codes, drawn as stacked rows of bars. PDF417 is the code on identity documents, transport tickets and shipping papers: it holds a lot of text, and it survives being read by a laser scanner rather than a camera.
Each code carries what it says printed under it, and a code reader is run over the finished page to prove it reads back. Drawing the rows line by line rather than as an image is what keeps a long code legible whatever size the document is printed at.
What this example shows
- PDF417 rows drawn line by line, sharp at any size.
- Error-correction levels you choose yourself.
- Every code captioned with the text it carries.
The code, in full
The same document is written twice, once in each language. Both files are shown in full, with the code coloured on the server, and can be copied in one click.
The document itself
The same document is written in each of these languages. Open the one you want to look at.
What this document weighs
This document weighs 43,603 bytes.
The team has since put a heading and two lines at the top of this page saying what the codes are for, so the earlier figure was taken on a document this one is no longer. See every document measured.
Examples near this one
QR codes
A page of QR codes, drawn as squares.
Data Matrix codes
A page of Data Matrix codes, drawn as squares.
Aztec codes
A page of Aztec codes, drawn as squares.
Internal and external links
Pages that link out of themselves and to each other.
Links and marks on placed text
Links and marks hung on text the engine has already placed: a band behind a line, an underline, a boxed cell — every rectangle taken from what the layout and the table report afterwards, none of it measured by hand.
Glossary
- PDF417
- A wide, flat code made of stacked bars, the one on the back of a driving licence, on an airline boarding pass or on a shipping label. It holds several hundred characters — a whole identity, a whole delivery line — where an ordinary striped code holds a number.