Barcode Bars and LengthsHow many widths of bars are there in a bar code?A barcode can have any number of possible widths for each bar. The simplest barcodes have only two bar widths, narrow and wide. 2-width bar codes have the advantage of tolerating lower print quality when scanning. More complex barcodes have multiple-width bars, with more than 2 different widths. For example, the widths of bars in a multiple-width barcode might be 1X, 2X and 3X, where X is the width of the smallest bar. Multiple-width barcodes can say more in less space because each bar can stand for 1 of several values, rather than just two values. Can barcodes be any length? Some barcode symbologies are fixed-length and some are variable-length. In a fixed-length symbology, an exact number of characters must be encoded in each barcode. Foir example, in the UPC-A symbology, exactly 12 digits must be in each barcode. Anything with less or more than 12 characters in not UPC-A. In a variable-length symbology, any number of characters can be encoded and printed in a barcode. This is of course limited by hardware, what lengths are reasonable to print and what lengths are reasonable to scan. An example of variable-length is the Code 128 symbology. Back |