If you are a Partner Connections Member, you can use the GS1 US Data Driver tool to help you easily create, manage, and print your barcodes.
Step 1: Get a GS1 Company Prefix
Step 2: Assign Numbers
Step 3: Select a Barcode Printing Method
Step 4: Select a "Primary" Scanning Environment
Step 5: Select a Barcode
Step 6: Pick a Barcode Size
Step 7: Format the Barcode Text
Step 8: Pick a Barcode Color
Step 9: Pick the Barcode Placement
Step 10: Build a Barcode Quality Plan
Before your company can begin using barcodes, you must create the numbers that go inside the barcode. These numbers are called GS1 identification numbers. The first step in building an identification number is to obtain a GS1 Company Prefix from GS1 US. GS1 Company Prefixes are used to identify over 1 million companies today and form the foundation of uniquely identifying items in the value chain. To obtain your GS1 Company Prefix, please complete a Partner Connections membership application. To learn more about membership, view a Quick Tour read Learn More, or review FAQs.
After receiving a GS1 Company Prefix, your company is ready to begin assigning identification numbers to trade items (products or services), your company (as a legal entity), locations, logistic units, individual company assets, returnable assets (returnable pallets, kegs, tubs), and service relationships.
Visit the GS1 identification numbers page to learn how to format the numbers. Then use the GS1 Company Prefix (found on your Partner Connections Membership Certificate) in combination with reference numbers you assign.
Partner Connections membership includes access to Data Driver®,which makes it easy to assign numbers. Data Driver is a quick, easy-to-use online tool that creates and manages identification numbers for U.P.C. barcodes for your products, as well as identification numbers for legal entities and locations.
Using the Data Driver tool allows you to automatically skip the next 8 implementation steps and assists you with managing and printing your U.P.C. barcodes. Data Driver is an exclusive tool only for Partner Connections members that saves time and provides quality results.
To begin, you need to know what items will be barcoded and if the barcode will carry static or dynamic information inside it. An example of static information would simply be a product identification number (U.P.C. barcode) on a cereal box. An example of dynamic information would be printing unique serial numbers on product labels.
Most companies that need large volumes of labels with static information, rely on outside printers. If you need a small volume of labels or need to print labels with dynamic information, you will need an on-demand printer (e.g., laser printer) in your office or thermal transfer printer in your warehouse.
Knowing how you will print your barcode is an important question to answer in developing a good barcode implementation plan. We recommend that you consult a GS1 US Certified Solution Partner to assist you in making the right selection or to print the barcodes for you.
The specifications for barcode type, size, placement, and quality all depend on where the barcode will be scanned. There are four basic scanner environment scenarios for trade items:
- Product package scanned at the retail point-of-sale (POS)
- Product package scanned in a general distribution such as a warehouse
- Product package scanned at POS but also scanned in distribution
- Special environments, such as medical device marking
By knowing where your barcode will be scanned, you can establish the right specifications for its production. For example, if a product package is scanned at point-of-sale (POS) and in general distribution, you will need to use an EAN/UPC symbol to accommodate POS but print it in a larger size to accommodate distribution scanning and ensure the placement meets automated distribution scanning requirements.
You can find more information in the GS1 General Specifications (available in the Solutions Center as a Partner Connections membership benefit). For information on scanner environments see Section 5.4 of the General Specifications, for symbol placement consult Section 6.0. Solution Partners are also a ready-source to help you with scanning and symbol placement.
Selecting the right barcode is essential for the success of your barcode implementation plan.
- If you barcode an item that will be scanned at the retail point-of-sale (POS), you must use an EAN/UPC symbol.
- If you are printing a barcode with variable information, such as lot numbers, serial numbers, expiration dates, or measures, then you will use GS1-128, GS1 DataBar, or in special cases Composite Component ds or GS1 DataMatrix symbols.
- If you want to identify a product on its corrugated carton, ITF-14 may be the choice for you.
- Additional implementation guidelines are available in the in the Solutions Center, which is a Partner Connections membership benefit. Consult the Sectors section of this website to learn about industry specific implementation requirements and initiatives.
After the correct barcode symbol is specified together with the information to encode in it, the design stage begins. The size of the symbol within the design will depend on the symbol specified, where the symbol will be used, and how the symbol will be printed.
EAN/UPC Symbols
EAN/UPC symbols are scanned by retail omni-directional scanners at point-of-sale (POS). This means that EAN/UPC symbols have a fixed relationship between symbol height and width. When one dimension is modified, the other dimension should be altered by a proportional amount. Because of this relationship, EAN/UPC symbols have a nominal height and width specified. A range of allowable sizes from 80% to 200% of the nominal size are also specified. This range of sizes is often referred to as ""magnification factors"" on purchase orders specifying EAN/UPC symbol sizes. The minimum, nominal, and maximum magnification for EAN/UPC symbols are shown below. More information on size can be found in GS1 General Specifications, Section 5.1, Appendix 7.
EAN/UPC Magnification Factors
Minimum (80%)
Nominal (100%)
Maximum (200%)
In order to decrease the amount of space EAN/UPC symbols take up on a design, a decreased symbol height might be specified. This process, called truncation, is not permitted within EAN/UPC symbology specifications and should be avoided. This is because of the negative impact it has on scan rates for retail omni-directional scanners. For more information on truncation, refer to the GS1 General Specifications, Section 6.3.3.4. When EAN/UPC symbols are used in shipping and distribution, as well as, at the point-of-sale (POS), the allowable magnification range is limited to between 150% and 200%. An example of this would be the symbol on a carton used for a large appliance (e.g. TV or microwave oven).
ITF-14 and GS1-128 Symbols
ITF-14 and GS1-128 symbols also have a range of sizes specified. ITF-14 and GS1-128 symbol sizes are often specified by the width of the X-Dimension instead of magnification values. You can find information on the sizes for ITF-14 and GS1-128 symbols based on the application where they are used or the identification number they carry in GS1 General Specifications, Section 5.4.2.
Consideration of the Printing Process
The final consideration for symbol size is the selected printing process. The minimum size (magnification) and correct Bar Width Reduction (BWR) for a symbol varies by printing process and even from press to press. Printing companies should establish a minimum symbol size (magnification) and BWR to achieve acceptable and repeatable quality results.
The numbers printed under a barcode are important because if the barcode is damaged or of poor quality, the printed numbers are used as a back-up. Characters, such as letters and numbers, that can be read by people, as opposed to symbol characters within barcodes, are called Human Readable Interpretation text. Human Readable Interpretation text or the letters and numbers in the EAN/UPC symbol can be any size or any font as long as they are clearly legible. Detailed size specifications for EAN/UPC symbols, are available in the GS1 General Specifications Section 5.1, Appendix 6. The Human Readable Interpretation text for ITF-14 and GS1-128 symbols must be legible and in a size proportional to the symbol size. Read more in the GS1 General Specifications Section 5.2.1.6 (ITF-14) and Section 5.3.7.4 (GS1-128).
Placement of Text
Human Readable Interpretation text can be placed above or below the symbol depending on which type of barcode symbol being used. For EAN/UPC symbols, refer to the drawings in the GS1 General Specifications Section 5.1, Appendix 6. For ITF-14 and GS1-128 symbols the text can be printed above or below the symbol as per GS1 General Specifications Section 5.2.1.6 (ITF-14) and Section 5.3.7.4 (GS1-128).
Layout of Text
The layout of the human readable characters under the barcode is important. For EAN/UPC symbols the text should be laid out as in the drawings in the GS1 General Specifications Section 5.1, Appendix 6. The spacing of text for ITF-14 and GS1-128 symbols helps make the text easier to read and key enter. While including spaces is perfectly appropriate for the Human Readable Interpretation, the spaces must not be encoded in GS1 symbols. You may see parentheses around the Application Identifiers (AI) in the GS1-128 symbol. All AIs must be enclosed in parentheses in the Human Readable Interpretation text, but the parentheses are not encoded in the barcode symbol. To learn more see the GS1 General Specifications Section 5.3.7.4.
Number of Digits
The number of digits you can print beneath the EAN/UPC symbol in the Human Readable text varies by symbol:
- The UPC-A requires12 digits, no more, no less, printed below the symbol.
- The EAN-13 requires 13 digits, no more, no less, printed below the symbol.
- The UPC-E and EAN-8 require 8 digits, no more, no less, below the symbols.
The optimum color combination for a barcode symbol is black bars with a white background.
- Black bars and white spaces are the optimal combination for barcodes, but other color combinations can be used. GS1 barcode symbols require dark colors for bars (e.g., black, dark blue, dark brown, or dark green).
- The bars should always consist of a single line color and should never be printed by multiple imaging tools (e.g., plate, screen, cylinder).
- GS1 barcode symbols require light backgrounds for the Quiet Zones and spaces (e.g., white).
- In addition to light backgrounds, "reddish" colors may also be used. If you have ever been in a darkroom with red lighting and tried to read red copy, you know it can virtually disappear. This is also true of similar colors such as orange, pink, peach, and light yellows. Given the fact that most barcode scanners use a red light source, you can quickly see why these colors may be suitable for backgrounds, but should be avoided for bars.
- In many cases the symbol background is not printed. It is the color of the substrate that is being printed. If the symbol background is printed beneath the bars, the background should be printed as solid line colors.
- If you use multiple layers of ink to increase the background opacity, each layer should be printed as a solid.
- If you use a fine screen to deliver more ink to the substrate, be sure there are no voids in the print caused by the screen not adequately filling in.
- Consult an experienced printer for additional guidance. Please consider using GS1 US Certified Solution Partner to assist you in making the right selection or to print the barcodes for you.
When assigning symbol placement, the packaging process should be considered. You should consult the packaging engineer to make sure the symbol will not be obscured or damaged (e.g., over a carton edge, beneath a carton fold, beneath a package flap, or covered by another packaging layer). To determine the proper location for GS1 barcodes, see the following sections of the GS1 General Specifications:
- Logistics Label Design, Section 2.2.4.4
- General Placement Principles, Section 6.2
- General Placement Guidelines for the Retail Point of Sale, Section 6.3
- Placement Guidelines for Specific Package Types, Section 6.4
- Symbol Placement for Clothing and Fashion Accessories, Section 6.5
- General Format Guidelines for Clothing and Fashion Accessories Labels, Section 6.6
- General Placement Guidelines for Symbol Placement on Items Used in Distribution, Section 6.7
- Your printing company should be consulted before assigning the symbol rotation. Many printing processes require barcodes to be printed in a specific orientation to the feed direction of the web or sheet.
Flexographic printing requires the bars to run parallel to the press direction or in a picket fence orientation. If the bars are required to run perpendicular to the press direction or in the ladder orientation, try to avoid distorting the symbol for the plate roll circumference. When using either silk screen or rotogravure printing processes, the symbol should be aligned parallel to the cell structure on the screen or gravure plate cylinder to provide the smoothest bar edge possible.
To use barcodes properly to identify and capture information about items and locations in your value chain, quality must be considered. GS1 US provides
barcode quality verification services.
A publication, ISO/IEC 15416 Barcode Print Quality Test Specifications for Linear Symbols, which describes a method for assessing the quality of barcode symbols after they are printed is available from the International Standards Organization (ISO)An ISO-based verifier looks at the symbol in the way a scanner does, but goes further by grading the symbol's quality.ISO/IEC Barcode Print Quality method is used by GS1, and specifies the minimum test grade necessary for every GS1 barcode based on which symbol is used, where it is used, or what identification number it is carrying. In addition to the minimum grade, GS1 also specifies the verifier aperture width and wavelength. For more information refer to the GS1 General Specifications. Section 5.4.2.8 provides a reference list of symbol quality specifications depending on the symbol type, the application, or the identification number the symbol is carrying.