Generating EAN 128 (GS1-128) barcode manually from any editor using EAN 128 font
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Reference
Prerequistic
- font from idautomation: IDAutomationSC128M.ttf. The font is located at “IDAutomation_C128FontAdvantageDEMO\IDAutomation_C128FontAdvantageDEMO\Human Readable Fonts\Set C”
Generate barcode manually from Microsoft Word
EAN 128 is comprised of following structure
- Start code
- FNC Code
- Application Identifier(AI) code
- Data
- Repeating 3 and 4 to put multiple information into one barcode
- Check digit with MOD103 (remainder divied by 103)
- Stop code
If you look at the barcode per character, you will notice that 3 lines will be represent one letter or symbol except the stop code which is 4 lines.
To understand EAN-128 Code C, if you look at the USC Code-128 Character Set from the reference site, you will notice that all digits, alphabets, and symbols must be represented with two numbers.
Let’s look at the example of showing itemcode with Code C type. The itemcode must be numeric and we will be 14 digits for the itemcode(This length can be different depending on the specification) including check sum.
The length of itemcode will be 14 including check digit, so the itemcode should have 13 digists and 1 digit for the checksum. The itemcode for the example will be 0000010001000 which is 13 digits and checkdigit will be 8 for this itemcode. The final code will be 0000100010008 for the itemcode.
As I explained the format of EAN 128 Code C type, the format will be
- Start C code: ASCII(0205)
- FNC1: ASCII(0202)
- AI code for the item: For the item, it is consisted with only number, to display barcode, we will need to group with two digists. In this case, 00 00 01 00 01 00 08. If you look at the USC Code-128, 00 will be ASCII(0194), 01 will be ASCII(0033), and 08 will be ASCII(0040). To use ascii code in Word, use ALT + Key_Value technique. To display 00 code for EAN 128, press ALT key, enter 0194 without releasing ALT, and release ALT after entering the number. You will see the barcode for 00. To display above
- MOD103 Value: 89. ASCII(0121)
- STOP code: ASCII(0206)
The method to calculate the MOD is in the reference site. In our case,
| CODE C |
start c |
fnc1 |
34 |
31 |
31 |
33 |
31 |
33 |
31 |
41 |
| Weight |
1 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
| Value |
105 |
102 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
8 |
| Weight*Value |
105 |
102 |
4 |
0 |
0 |
5 |
0 |
7 |
0 |
72 |
| Total |
295 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| MOD103 |
89 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
MOD103 means remainder of 295 divided by 103.
Conclusion
As you saw this explanation, barcode line is consisted of 3 lines except STOP code which is 4 lines. To generate this right data using this method from SQL Report or other tool, you will need to write a code which reads string and translate it to EAN 128 format code. I hope this helps to understand how EAN 128 can be generated manually using any text editor with free font.
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