EAN-13 Barcode Introduction
EAN-13 barcode generation requirements & recommended barcode library for ASP.NET, Winforms, Word and Excel
EAN-13 Barcode Introduction
EAN-13 is a linear barcode symbology which is defined by the standards of GS1 and widely used cross the Point-of-Sale in a retail outlet.
EAN-13 could carry GTIN-13s and is an extension of barcode UPC-A. EAN-13 is an numeric only barcode symbology with fixed length. An Modulo 10 checksum digit could be included in the linear barcode. In January 1, 2005, Uniform Code Council of USA announced all retailing scanning system should be able to read EAN-13 barcode.
EAN-13 Barcode Generator for .NET Applications
Users are able to generate high quality EAN-13 into .NET applications, most common barcode control please refer to:
Detailed Information for EAN-13 and EAN-13 2/5 Digits Add-on
EAN-13 Valid Character Set
EAN-13 Structure
This part specifies each part of EAN-13 explain the position and meaning of the 4 parts.
The first 2 digits - number system of Country code. The first 2 digits indicates the country code or economic region of the manufactory. It will be 2 digits long when it is assigned to industrial country while the 3 digits will be assigned to less developed countries.
The following 3~8 digits - company number. Length may differ in different conversation in ISBN, ISMNs OR ISSNs. All products in the same company will share the same company code.
Next 2~6 digits - product code. The company could design their own product code provided there is no reduplication.
The last one digit - checksum digit. Checksum digit is essential for verifying scanning correction of the barcode and it ensures the number is correctly composed
Modulo 10 checksum digit
EAN-8 and EAN-13 employ the modulo 10 calculation formula to check if correct barcode symbology has been composed. It is easy to compute the checksum of EAN-13:
- Locate the right most digit of EAN-13 and assigned it with Odd position.
- Put the following digits from right to left in sequence of Odd-Even-Odd position.
- Assign the digits in Odd position with weighting 3, and those digits in Even position with weighting 1.
- Multiple the weighting value with digit value.
- Sum up all the results and divide it with 10.
- Add a number to plus with the reminder and make the result to be 10, the number added is the check digit.
- Add a number plus the result. The summary could be evenly divided by 10. The number added is the checksum digit. And if the results could be evenly divided by 10, the checksum digit is 0.
For example, the check digit of "978456789102" is 8.
Winforms .NET Barcode Generation SDK