Barcode Format Types

A barcode is a visual representation of information about a specific product that is read by an optical scanner. While consumers are familiar with the linear type of barcodes, other types employ patterns using geometric figures such as circles and squares. According to the Barcode Incorporated website, the railroad industry was the first to use barcode applications.In the early 1960s, barcodes were introduced to identify and track individual rail cars. It wasn't until the next decade that grocery store chains began to test the idea of using barcodes and scanners to streamline the inventory process. Today, barcodes are used universally to identify and track products.

UPC
North American manufacturers use UPC codes for virtually all products. The Uniform Code Council is paid to assign appropriate UPC codes. UPC-A codes always contain 12 digits that represent product type, manufacturer and product. The final digit represents a "checksum," a digit used to ensure that the UPC has been scanned correctly. UPC-E is used when a product is too small to accommodate UPC-A.

EAN
The EAN barcode, used throughout Europe, was derived from the UPC code. The International Article Numbering Association is paid to assign appropriate EAN barcodes. EAN-8 and EAN-13 codes, named for the number of digits they contain, represent country, product type, manufacturer, product and checksum. Subsets of EAN are Bookland +2 and Bookland +5, used to track ISBN numbers for books and magazines.

Two of Five
The Two of Five barcodes, also called two of five interleaved, vary in length but always contain an even number of digits. This barcode type was introduced in the late 1960s and is most often used for airline tickets, photograph envelopes and warehouse inventory systems.

Three of Nine
Barcode Three of Nine is an alphanumeric code used to identify non-retail items. This code uses A through Z, zero through nine and a few special characters such as the dollar and percentage symbols. The code does not use a checksum and can be generated without a computer program.

93
Barcode 93 was created to improve on code Three of Nine, providing more information with the same number of characters and containing two checksums. This code's advantage is the ability to encode full ASCII code, the code that represents text in computers, communications equipment and other devices.

128
Barcode 128 is broken down into three subsets: 128A, 128B and 128C. The subsets differ in the amount of characters available, with 128C containing the most possibilities: a full set of capitalized letters, a full set of lower case letters, numbers zero through nine and an array of special characters. A checksum is used in this code.

Codabar
Codabar barcodes are used by package delivery companies, blood banks and libraries. These codes contain only digits zero through nine and a minimal number of special characters, and do not contain a checksum. They can be generated without a computer program.

PostNet
PostNet barcodes are used by the United States Postal Service to print zip codes. Software used to create these barcodes automatically adds a checksum character as well as specified start and stop characters.

11
Code 11 is a barcode that uses only digits and is used to label telecommunications equipment. The software used to create these barcodes adds one or two checksum characters depending on the number of digits required to identify the component.

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