The use of barcode technology has proven itself for decades to be a great way to conduct and manage data entry, information tracking, for improving operational efficiency and reducing clerical and data errors. As a result, more and more applications and systems managers seek to use barcodes. However, once you head into choosing a barcode, you might be surprised to uncover how many barcode types exist on the market. There’s the 1D barcode, 2D barcode, UPC, Code 39, QR Code, PDF417, etc. The list goes on and on. So, which barcode is the right one for you? In this article I would like to give you a guide covering 14 major barcodes. Collectively, they cover the bulk of application needs. For 1D barcodes, they include: Code 11, Code 39, Code 93, Code 128, Codabar, EAN 8, EAN 13, Interleaved 2 of 5, Industrial 2 of 5, UPC-A, and UPC-E. For 2D barcodes they include: QRCode, DataMatrix, and PDF417. There are many more barcode types than these 14 barcodes, but these 14 barcodes are pretty much the most popular ones. This guide will introduce what each one of these 14 barcodes provides and what’s the best scenario to use them. We’ll also detail some online tools you can use to generate and read the barcodes. In the end, the goal of this article is to provide you a clear picture about the differences in these barcodes so you can choose the one you need.

1. Comprehensive
Guide to 1D
and 2D
Barcodes

2. 1D and 2D barcode
– The 1D barcodes, or one-dimensional barcodes are linear barcodes. They
consist of vertical lines of varying widths with specific gaps resulting in a
particular pattern.
– The 2D barcodes, or two-dimensional barcodes, are more complex. They
encode data generally in square or rectangular patterns of two dimensions.
– In general, 2D barcodes can represent more data per unit area. More often than
not they support a bigger character set than 1D barcodes.

3. Character Set
There are generally three different types of character sets: numeric, alpha-
numeric, and full ASCII.

4. UPC-A
Nowadays it’s found on virtually every
consumer goods packaging.

5. What is it?
UPC-A encodes 11 digits of product information data
along with a trailing check digit, for a total of 12 digits of
bar code data.
• The first digit represents the information regarding
the type of the product.
• The next five digits contain information about the
manufacturer of the product.
• The last five digits contain information about the
particular product being encoded.
Where is it used?
• The UPC-A bar code is widely used all over the world
for scanning of trade items at the point of sale.
Industry
• Retail, Warehousing

6. UPC-E
The UPC-E is a variation of the UPC-A

7. What is it?
The UPC-E allows for a more compact
barcode by compressing out unnecessary
zeros. This helps result in the UPC-E
barcode being only about half the size of a
UPC-A barcode.
Where is it used?
The UPC-E barcode is used in retail and
warehousing, especially in the USA and
Canada.
Industry
Retail, Warehousing
Equivalent UPC-E Barcode:
Original UPC-A Barcode:

8. EAN 13
EAN-13 is a 13-digit (12 data and one check) barcoding
standard which is a superset of the original 12-digit
Universal Product Code (UPC) system.

9. What is it?
• EAN-13 is a superset of the original 12-digit
Universal Product Code (UPC) system.
Therefore, any software or hardware
capable of reading an EAN-13 symbol should
automatically be able to read an UPC-
A symbol.
• Since 2005, all retail scanning systems in the
USA have accepted the EAN-13 symbol as
well as the standard UPC-A.
Where is it used?
The EAN-13 barcode is used worldwide for
marking products often sold at retail stores
and point of sales.
Industry
Retail

10. EAN 8
Derived from the longer (EAN-13) code, the main
purpose of the EAN-8 bar code is to use as little
space as possible.

11. What is it?
An EAN-8 bar code includes a two or three-
digit country code, four of five data digits
(according to the length of the country code),
and a checksum digit. The data digits in an
EAN-8 symbol identify a specific product and
manufacturer.
Where is it used?
You’ll find EAN-8 barcodes on products where
only limited space is available, like small
candies, cigarettes, pencils, and chewing gum
packets.
Companies may also use EAN-8 barcodes to
encode RCN-8s (8-digit Restricted Circulation
Numbers) used to identify own-brand products
sold only in their stores.
Industry
Retail

12. Industrial 2 of 5
Industrial 2 of 5 is a low-density numeric symbol
that has been with us since the 1960s.

13. What is it?
The barcode is called “2 of 5” due to the fact
that digits are encoded with five bars, two of
which are always wide (and the remaining
three are narrow).
Industrial 2 of 5 is a very simple symbol in that
all information is encoded in the width of the
bars. The spaces in the barcode exist only to
separate the bars themselves.
Where is it used?
Industrial 2 of 5 has been used in
photofinishing, transport and warehouse
sorting applications, as well as for sequentially
numbering airline tickets.
Industry
Transport, Warehousing

14. Interleaved 2 of 5
Interleaved 2 of 5 is a higher-density numeric
symbol based upon the Industrial 2 of 5 symbol.

15. Interleaved 2 of 5
Each data character consists of five elements,
either five bars or five spaces. The symbol is
termed “interleaved” because the first numeric
data is encoded in the first five bars while the
second numeric data is encoded in the first five
spaces that separate the first five bars.
This feature allows Interleaved 2 of 5 to
achieve a relatively higher density, but users
must always encode an even number of
numeric values.
Where is it used?
Interleaved 2 of 5 is used primarily in
applications such as label packaging,
distribution and warehousing. Since the
barcode can deal with high printing tolerances,
it is good for printing on corrugated cardboard.
Industry
Packaging, Logistics
Note that the above bar code is
physically smaller than Industrial 2 of 5.

16. Codabar
Codabar is a discrete, self-checking symbol that
encodes up to 16 different characters with an
additional four start/stop characters.

17. What is it?
Codabar can encode the digits zero through
nine, six symbols (-:.$/+), and the start/stop
characters A, B, C, D, E, *, N, or T. The
start/stop characters must be used in matching
pairs and may not appear elsewhere in the
barcode. Since Codabar is self-checking, there
is no established checksum digit.
Where is it used?
Although newer symbologies hold more data
information in a smaller space, Codabar has a
large installed base in libraries.
Codabar barcodes are used by logistics and
healthcare professionals, including U.S. blood
banks, FedEx airbills, photo labs, libraries, etc.
Industry
Logistics, Healthcare and Education

18. Code 11
Code 11 is a high-density discrete symbol
produced by Intermec in 1977.

19. What is it?
The symbology is able to encode the
numbers zero through nine, the dash
symbol (-), and start/stop characters.
Each digit is made up of three bars and
two spaces. The width of a digit will not
be fixed. Code 11 is not immune to
printing imperfections because they can
easily convert one character into another
valid character. So one, or sometimes two,
check digits (named C and K) are used to
improve data integrity.
Where is it used?
It is used primarily in labeling
telecommunications equipment.
Industry
Telecommunications

20. Code 39
Code 39 is general purpose and one of the
most widely used barcode types.

21. What is it?
As the first alpha-numeric symbol developed in the year 1974 by Intermec, Code 39 is
a variable length, discrete barcode symbology.
The name of code 39 comes from the fact that it could only encode 39 characters in
total. However, in its most recent version, the character set has been increased to 43.
They consist of uppercase letters (A through Z), numeric digits (zero through nine) and
a number of special characters (-, ., $, /, +, %, and space). An additional character
(denoted ‘*’) is used for both start and stop delimiters.
The barcode itself does not include a check digit. But it is considered self-checking in
that a single print defect cannot transpose one character into another valid character.

22. • Where is it used?
Born in 1974, Code 39 is still widely used, especially in non-retail
environments. It is supposedly the standard barcode used by the
United States Department of Defense and is also used by the Health
Industry Bar Code Council (HIBCC).
• Industry
Government, Manufacturing, Logistics, Postal, Medical, Automotive
and Defense

23. Code 93
Code 93 was made in 1982 by Intermec to
complement and improve upon Code 39.

24. What is it?
Code 93 differs from Code 39 in that Code
93 is a continuous symbol and produces
denser code. It encodes 47 characters
compared to Code 39’s 43 characters. Its
high density and compact size makes its
labels around 25 percent shorter than
barcodes produced in Code 39.
The Standard Mode (default
implementation) of Code 93 can encode
uppercase letters (A through Z), digits
(zero through nine) and special characters
like the *, -, $, %, (space), ., /, and + . The
Full ASCII mode or extended version can
encode all 128 ASCII characters. Code 93
enables additional security within the
barcode itself.

25. Where is it used?
Code 93 barcodes are widely used in
logistics to identify packages, in retail
inventory, label electronic components,
and reportedly even provide additional
delivery information for the Canadian
Post.
Industry
Postal, Retail, Manufacturing and Logistics

26. Code 128
It is another linear barcode popular in
industry and stores.

27. What is it?
The Code 128 character set includes the
digits zero through nine, the letters A-Z
(upper and lower case), and all standard
ASCII symbols and control codes.
The codes are separated into three
subsets A, B, and C. Subset A includes the
standard ASCII symbols, digits, upper case
letters, and control codes. Subset B
includes standard ASCII symbols, digits,
upper and lower case letters. Subset C
compresses two numeric digits (the set of
100 digit pairs from 00 to 99) into each
character, providing excellent density.
Code 128 is usually selected over Code 39
in new applications because of its
excellent density and much larger
selection of characters.

28. Where is it used?
Code 128 barcodes are compact, high-
density codes used in logistics and
transportation industries for ordering and
distribution. They’re geared toward non-
POS products, like supply chain
applications needing label units with serial
shipping container codes (SSCC).
Industry
Transport, Shipping, Tracking

29. QR code
They really rose in popularity with mobile
devices.

30. What is it?
The QR code can encode a wide variety of data
types, including numeric, alphabets, special
characters and binary data as well.
The QR code was designed to allow high-speed
component scanning. A charge-coupled device
(CCD) barcode reader can decode up to 30 QR
codes per second with up to 100 characters in
each barcode.
Each QR code has three finder patterns located
in three corners of the QR code. A CCD reading
device can detect and decode the position of
the barcode, the size of the barcode and the
size of the inclination angle.
This barcode type has a high data density. It
can encode 1,817 Chinese characters, 7,089
numbers or 4,296 English letters. It has four
levels of error correction. Even if a QR code is
damaged or broken, it can often still be read
correctly.

31. Where is it used?
Today, QR codes have become
common in areas such as
consumer advertising, code
payments, website logins, for
data encryption, and more.
Industry
Retail, Entertainment and
Advertising

32. PDF417
The PDF417 barcode is a type of stacked
linear barcode.

33. What is it?
Each PDF417 barcode consists of three to
90 rows, and a single row is essentially the
equivalent of a small 1D barcode. PDF417
specifies that each pattern in the code
consists of four bars and spaces, and each
pattern is to be 17 units long. This is how
we get the “417” part of the name.
Where is it used?
It is mainly used in transportation,
identification cards and inventory
management. Most states in America use
PDF417 to encode drivers’ key information
on the back side of driver licenses.
Industry
Transport, Logistics, Warehousing,
Government

34. Data Matrix
It supports advanced encoding error
checking and correction algorithms.

35. What is it?
The Data Matrix barcode supports
advanced encoding error checking and
correction algorithms. This allows the
recognition of barcodes that are up to 60
percent damaged.
Data Matrix barcodes are adaptable in
size. The symbol size can be as small as
2.5mm, which is the smallest among all
2D barcodes. Meanwhile, the size and the
encoded data capacity is independent.
This allows the choosing of a lot of
different matrix sizes.

36. Where is it used?
The most popular application for Data
Matrix is labeling small items, such as
small electronic components and pill
bottles.
Also, it’s commonly used on items where
barcodes get easily damaged due to high
heat, chemical exposure, etc., such as,
electrical rating plates, surgical
instruments, circuit boards and the like.
Industry
Electronics, Retail, Government,
Marketing, Post, Electronics, Medical

37. How to decide which one
In general, the selection of a barcode relies on many factors. Some
of these are listed below. But, of course, this is not an all-inclusive
list:
• You need to consider the industry and related regulation needs
and requirements. Make sure to follow common practices.
• Be clear about the character set you need to support for the
business.
• If possible, always choose more compatible barcode types, like
EAN-13 over UPC-A.

38. How to decide which one
• If you need to encode a large amount of data, consider a 2D
barcode first.
• Check if there is some special need for your product. Is the
product too compact in space that allows only for high-density
barcodes like EAN-8, UPC-E, Code 128, etc.? Will your product
packaging get easily polluted requiring a barcode with good fault
tolerance? If so, consider barcodes with an error correction
mechanism, like QR Code, Data Matrix, etc.
• Do you need your barcodes read by mobile apps? If so, the QR
Code is extremely popular in this scenario.

39. Recommendation of a barcode
SDK
You can use Dynamsoft’s Barcode Reader to read the information
encoded in your barcode. It supports reading all major 1D and 2D
barcodes, using only a few lines of code.