TransBar Codes 128
Fields of application
TransBar Ean 13 & 8 allow to create barcodes for the following fields of application :
- medical
- CIP 13, UCD 13 or ACL 13 numbers coding on medicines or french pharmaceutical specilities
- « Sécurité Sociale » sticker on french medicines, according to the decree from the 21st of February 1996
- RPPS, FINESS or AM numbers codage on french medical prescriptions (ordinary or securized prescriptions under AFNOR control) according to the decree NOR: SASS1021517A from the 10th of August 2010 published in "Journal Officiel" n° 0202 from the 1st of September 2010. For this use, and if the barcodes have to be obtained from a management software based on variables datas, the simplified solution Code128T36So font can be better
- logistic
- Labelling of fixed or variables informations (content, batch number, sale deadline date, etc) on mass consumption product's overpacking (cartons, box, pallet, containers) according to the GS1 128 / Ean 128 standard prescribe by GS1
- Spare car parts logistic, according to Galia 128
- administrative
- administrave prints, transport vouchers, etc, according to the specifications imposing the Code 128
- Internal management applications requiring the encoding of lowercase, uppercase, numbers, Ascii signes or control characters, compact encoding of numbers or high security. Code 128 barcode symbology is currently the most complete and reliable; however, in view of its complexity of implementation, these advantages can not be sufficient to prescribe it in a systematic manner and without prior comparison with the easier to use Code 39
Storable characters
The Code 128 barcodes can store informations with any length, composed by :
- digits
- uppercase
- lowercase
- display symbols of ASCII order between 32 and 126
- ASCII control characters between 0 and 31 including tabulation (order 9) and carriage return (order 10 & 13), ASCII 127, more than four characters specific of the Code 128, called FNC1, FNC2, FNC3 et FNC4, which have no graphic representation or ASCII/Unicode value, but whose standardized use specifies the meaning of the following information. The characters interpretation will depend both the reader (which may transmit or not) and the software which will receive thoses characters
In the particular case of the GS1 128 / Ean 128 standard, the barcodes store the overpacking’s reference or the overpacking’s products, otherwise called GTIN number or Ean 14. This number can be completed with other informations like the fabrication date, the sale deadline date, batch number, etc, all according to a specific syntax that will be verified by the transcription : the message to code have to be composed by a data ID with two characters, often represented between parentheses, followed by a data that, depending of the ID, may be composed of defined or indefinite number of digits or ASCII characters. The ID is significative of the content and the format of the message that follows. For example :
- (00) identifies a parcel number, commonly called “EAN 18”. This ID will be followed by 18 digits, so a total of 20 digits always starting by 00, which can be expressed in 3 ways :
- (00) 123456789012345678
- (00)123456789012345678
- 00123456789012345678
- (01) identifies a GTIN number or EAN14 specific to the overpack and will be followed by 14 digits
- (02) identifies an other GTIN number or EAN14, specific to the products overpacked and it will be also followed by 14 digits
- (10) identifies a batch number of fabrication and will be follow by 20digits maximum
- (11) identifies a fabrication date and will be followed by 6digits of this date (format YYMMDD, year, month, day, each one expressed by 2digits)
Consult the technical documentation TransBar GS1 128 / EAN 128 !
Consult the ID list of GS1 128 / EAN 128 !
Supported standards
The barcodes generated by TransBar Codes 128 respond to the common standards and appellations :
- 15417 CEI/IEC/ISO
- 63-300-4 Z
- 799 EN DIN/NF
- ACL 128
- AIAG 128
- AM
- CIP 128
- FINESS
- GALIA 128
- ODETTE 128
- RPPS
- UCD 128
- in their Code 128 option :
- ACL 13
- CIP 13
- UCD 13
- for the particular case of the GS1 128 / Ean 128 transcription :
- 0531 JIS X
- 15418 CEI/IEC/ISO
- 63-300-4 Z
- 799 EN DIN/NF
- DUN 128
- EAN 128
- FNC1
- GENCOD 128
- GS1 128
- SSCC
- UCC 128
Supported sets :
In Code128, each subset of 3 bars present 3 differents significations depending of the current sete which can be variable in the barcode. Thereby, a same information can be represented by many barcodes with different graphics ; among them, the most interesting are those with the smallest number of bars and therefore the smallest width, but for this, they use several sets in a single barcode, which implies a complex transcription using to an optimization calculation. For simplicity, some specifications recommend the use of a single set, which TransBar allows by the following choices :
- transcription « set A only »
- transcription « set B only »
- transcription « set C only »
- An optimized transcription,mixing at best the three sets A, B and C to minimize the width of the barcode
- Standard GS1 128 / Ean 128 transcription that:
- verifies the content validity
- adds automatically the control characters required by the standard
- mixes at best the 3 set A,B,C to optimize the width of the barcode
- calculates and provide a formated legend with parentheses
Content validity verification, GS1 128 / Ean 128 standard
The information to be encoded can be entered in TransBar according to various syntaxes, for example the entries :
- (11)130131(10)958777
- 1113013110958777
- 11130131(10)958777
- (11)13013110958777
- (11) 13013110958777
- (11) 130131 (10) 958777
- (11) 130231 (10) 958777
Graphic possibilities, Classic Code128
Except in the special case of the GS1 128 / Ean 128 standard, TransBar Codes 128 generates barcodes with seven common heights :
The barcodes are obtained without legend or are automatically provided with a legend (single-set transcription only) :
In the "Set C only" or "optimized set" transcriptions, the barcode width can not be deduced from the number of characters alone, it also depends on their type and distribution. For example, 13 or 16 digits lead to identical widths, and 15 digits brings more width than 16...
- with captioned transbar font :
- with uncaptioned transbar font and the « Courier » font :
Graphic possibilities, GS1 128 / EAN 128 standard
The standard GS1 128 / Ean 128 originally specified a nominal bar code dimension and described some common modification factors, both by the height and width of the bars. These requirements are poorly respected, because most barcode creation solutions do not allow them to be respected, and because the need has arisen to print GS1 128 / Ean 128 barcodes of small dimensions, for example on product catalogs.
TransBar allows to respect them or not, at the operator's choice.
To achieve small and full-size symbols, TransBar implements its general-purpose uncaptioned Code 128 fonts.
To obtain symbols with standardized dimensions, TransBar implements six specific fonts :
- one providing a nominal dimension symbol and allowing, by simple adjustment of the body, to obtain all size factors between 65 and 120% :
- Size Factor 65 % :
- Size Factor 100 % :
- five other non-resizable barcode fonts predefining the other common size factors: 25, 30, 40, 50 and 60% :
- Size Factor 25 % :
- Size Factor 30 % :
- Size Factor 40 % :
- Size Factor 50 % :
- Size Factor 60 % :
- Mac
- MacOS 10.10 "Yosemite" to MacOS 15 "Sequoia", processor Intel or ARM by Rosetta emulation
- Windows
- Intel version: Windows 7 - 64 bits Service Pack 1 to Windows 11 Pro or Family - 64 bits, processor Intel or ARM by emulation
- AMD version: Windows 11 Pro or Family - 64 bits, processor ARM exclusively
- either reduce the number of possible dimensions of barcodes;
- or generate micro-defects likely to decrease the durability or, worst case, the readability of the barcodes.
In each of these standard sizes, according to the requirements of the standard, the height of the bars must be at least 20 mm, because these barcodes can be read from afar under the wrong conditions of a warehouse.
The Ean 128 barcode standard provides for each bar code to include a caption including parentheses and spaces; but these parentheses and spaces are not encoded in the bars and a font with automatic legend is therefore not conceivable. The legend must therefore be obtained by a second line under the bars of the bar code, for example in Helvetica or Arial :
Transcription
Whatever the sets used, the transcriptions (expressions of information to be coded as text to be printed by a barcode font) are complex and no standard defines them. Those who doubt it will usefully ask the question: how to print a control character whose value is that of the character 'tabulation' or any other non-displayable character? Also, TransBar software should be used systematically. Example of transcription in "set C only" :
Minimum system requirements for TransBar
The most recent version of TransBar and its fonts have been tested with success on the following configurations:
with any software that supports text writing, copy and paste, text importation or CSV files, and offering the choice of the font and the font size for non-scalable printing ; a print where 72 DTP points (pica) are 25.4 mm in accordance with the current standard of DTP and professional printers.
The use of the "server" function is limited to software that can be programmed to implement it.
Any printers with a resolution of 300, 600, 900, 1200, 1800, 2400 dots per inch.
All printers of another resolution, as long as this resolution is known and in the layout software, the font size can be expressed as a fractional value (for example 42.37 points, without this input turning into 42 points), under penalty of:
Evaluation
Consult the evaluation manual step by step
Technical documentation
Consult :