Barcodes

Welcome to the definitive guide to Barcodes for greeting card publishers. Barcodes can often be a cause of much frustration for card designers. It’s a world filled with jargon, acronyms, technicalities and a dollop of maths thrown in for good measure. This article will sort the need-to-know from the nice-to-know and give you the clarity and understanding needed to ensure adding barcodes to cards is a painless task.

1. What is a barcode

A barcode is a system of parallel lines of varying thickness (“bars”) designed to be read by machines. You’ll find barcodes everywhere, they are a ubiquitous part of everyday life – you use barcodes every time you shop at a supermarket when you’re at the checkout.

Barcodes have been used in various industries since the 1960s; they are a staple of the retail sector, as well as to track parts in manufacturing, parcels in distribution and much more.

1.1 Why do we need barcodes?

If you deal with the larger multiple retailers & supermarkets, barcodes are a mandatory condition of supply. But increasingly, smaller independents now also insist on barcodes too as they move to more efficient EPOS (Electronic Point Of Sale) systems.

The main purpose of a barcode is to make the checkout process as efficient as possible. A cashier can scan a barcode in a couple of seconds; without barcodes they would have to manually key the price into the till – the humble barcode is what keeps the queue moving swiftly when you go shopping!

1.2 GTIN & EAN-13

The GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) is a unique number that can be used to identify a product anywhere in the world. There are a number of different GTIN systems. For the greeting card industry the system used predominantly is EAN-13 which stands for European Article Number 13 (because it contains 13 digits).

2. Anatomy of an EAN-13 barcode

It’s worth having a basic understanding of how EAN-13 numbers are made up. Each EAN-13 number has 13 digits, broken down as follows:

• Region Code: The first two digits represent the country or region. Barcodes starting with “50” have been issued in the UK.
• Manufacturer Code: The next 5 digits represent the manufacturer code. This will be unique to each publisher.
• Product Code: The next 5 digits are unique to the product for that manufacturer.
• Check Digit: The last digit is called the check digit. It’s mathematically calculated from the preceding 12 digits. The purpose of the check digit is to ensure the accuracy of a barcode. Scanning computers will calculate the check digit from the other 12 digits and make sure it matches the check digit on the barcode. If it doesn’t match, then the computer knows that there has been a mistake in reading the barcode and can flag up an error.

The calculation used for the check digit is tedious, and you don’t need to know it. But if you want to geek out here’s how to calculate the check digit manually.

3. Where to source barcode numbers

3.1 A brief history of barcodes

To understand the current barcode market as it stands today, we need to first take a brief look at the history of barcodes. In the 1970s, an organisation called the Uniform Code Council, UCC, was created to manage the inventory of barcodes used by retailers. The UCC sold EAN numbers to retailers in batches of 100,000 or more (which is far more than most businesses would ever need). This continued for over 30 years until it became clear that this was not an efficient or sustainable method of allocating barcodes. So the UCC changed it’s model to an annual subscription, allowing businesses to rent/lease barcodes in much smaller batches (1000s) for an annual fee. However, when the UCC tried to start charging retailers who had previously bought barcodes outright, there was an uproar resulting in a class action law suit. The outcome of this was that the UCC could not lay claim to any barcodes that had been issued prior to the 28th August 2002. These barcodes remained the property of the businesses who had purchased them.

Any new barcodes issues after this date were available for lease only via the UCC. But the over supply of the prior 30 years resulted in a market opening up for barcodes. For this reason, it is still possible to purchase barcodes outright.

In 2005 the UCC changed their name to GS1 (Global Standards 1). GS1 is a global not for profit organisation responsible for managing the GTIN system of numbers worldwide. GS1 has member companies around the world, and in the UK it’s called GS1 UK. Their website is www.gs1uk.org.

3.2 Buy or Rent?

As explained above, it is possible to purchase barcodes outright. If you only need a handful of barcode numbers, then this can be a cost effective route. However, there are some things you need to consider before doing this:

• Rogue traders – the barcode market is not regulated. Therefore you need to be very careful when purchasing barcodes to ensure the supplier is genuine. Also, the company you purchase from effectively becomes the registrar of your numbers. It’s not clear what happens if they go out of business.
• No company prefix – when you purchase barcodes outright, you do not get your own company prefix (the manufacturer code part of the barcode). Instead you share this with other buyers from the same range.
• Check with your customers – some retailers (such as Walmart in the US and Amazon) mandate that you must use a GS1 supplied barcode and will not accept barcodes that cannot be checked on the GS1 register.

A search on Google will find you plenty of suppliers of barcodes to investigate if you want to buy the numbers outright. However the GCA recommends you register with and licence your barcode numbers from GS1 UK. While this does mean an annual subscription, it is arguably the safest way to barcode your products. The cost depends on the number of barcodes you need and your annual turnover.

4. How to generate barcodes

Once you’ve joined GS1 UK you’ll be able to login to their portal to manage your barcode range using the My Numberbank tool. All your barcodes will be pre-generated, complete with check digit, inside your Numberbank. Simply allocate a product to an EAN-13 number inside the portal. You can also download your number range to a spreadsheet and re-upload them with product details if that’s easier.

4.1 Tips on managing your barcode inventory

It’s important to have internal processes for managing barcodes. It’s costly and annoying when a print run goes wrong because a barcode has been used twice, or on the wrong product. Here are some tips to help you avoid some of the common pitfalls.

1 Use the GS1 My Numberbank store. As part of your subscription to GS1 UK you’ll have access to their online database tool called My Numberbank. We suggest you make this the master database for your Barcode-SKU mappings. This database can hold many details about each of your products, including description, SKU, Brand and URL links. You don’t need to use all these fields, but do make sure you allocate the SKU to a barcode at a minimum.

2 Share barcode data across your team. Make sure all members of the team who need to use barcodes are able to access the data centrally. If each team member starts maintaining their own separate lists, then discrepancies can start to creep in. There are plenty of ways to store barcode information centrally, and the method you choose will depend on how your business operates. Some ideas include:

• A shared, and possibly read-only spreadsheet stored centrally on your network or cloud storage.
• If you use product management software (such as Sage 50 Accounts) then use the inbuilt barcode fields.
• Add multiple users to your GS1 UK account. Each user can be given specific permissions, and can then access the My Numberbank repository.

3 Have a process. It’s worth having a documented process for how barcodes are allocated in your organisation. This document should detail who is responsible for allocating barcodes, what tools are used to store and create & test barcode images, and how the relevant team members can access them. Make sure the team are aware of the process, and use the document to train any new team members.

4 Avoid reusing barcodes. Reusing barcodes on new products is not recommended. Some brokers/retailers keep barcode numbers stored on their systems indefinitely, and so it may cause issues if you use an old barcode even if the product is now obsolete. GS1 advise against reusing barcodes, but they suggest that if you must reuse, then wait at least 4 years after the original product has been discontinued.

5. The barcode image

There are a number of ways to generate the actual barcode image, and we’ll discuss some of them in this section. Remember, whatever method you use, it’s important to test the image you generate.

5.1 Quality Standards

Barcodes are subject to a number of quality standards. This is because they are an integral part of the supply chain, and products need to be read by scanners multiple times on their journey to the shopping basket. Poor quality barcodes not only slow down the distribution process they can also cost publishers dearly to rectify. That’s why it’s important to ensure your barcodes are printed on cards accurately every time.

The GS1 UK website is packed with information on creating good quality barcodes – but the information can be overwhelming, so here are the main points that Card publishers need to consider.

Print Quality

The quality of print can affect the scan-ability of barcode symbols (i.e. the parallel bars). Therefore it’s important to use a high quality printer. (The printers in the GCA Directory have lots of experience in printing barcodes on cards).

Quiet Zone

Before discussing the size of a barcode, we need to understand what is meant by the quiet zone. Barcode scanners know when a barcode begins and ends by looking for the spaces to the left and right of the stripes. These spaces are called the Quiet Zone and are an important part of the barcode symbol. Without the quiet zone, scanners could have difficulty reading a barcode.

Size

What size should you print barcodes at on the back of greeting cards? Before giving a practical answer, we need to cover some theory first – sorry!

Each barcode symbol consists of a set bars and spaces that vary in thickness representing different barcode numbers. Barcodes have a measure called the x-dimension. This is the width of the narrowest bar or space in a barcode. The rest of the bars in the barcodes are made up of thicknesses that are 2x, 3x and 4x the x-dimension. To put this another way, barcode symbols consist of 4 thicknesses of bars, and the thinnest bar has a width called the x-dimension.

When an EAN-13 barcode is printed at it’s nominal size, also referred to as “at 100% magnification”, then the x-dimension is 0.33mm. The GS1 standards allow barcodes to be printed at between 80% magnification and 200% magnification. However, this should be avoided as far as possible, and you should aim for 100% magnification. (If you must, be extra careful with printing below 100% magnification, as this makes the bars thinner and closer together reducing the tolerance for error).

At 100% magnification, the target bar height should be 23mm for EAN-13 barcodes, although this can be truncated (cropped) to 16mm, excluding the human readable numbers underneath. Avoid going any shorter than this, especially if you export to other countries where scanners may be less tolerant.

So, back to the question: What size should you print barcodes at on the back of greeting cards? If a barcode is printed at 100% magnification and the appropriate quiet zone is included, plus an extra 2mm to the left and right for good measure, then the size will be 42mm wide x 26mm tall.

Remember, never squash or stretch your barcode. To reduce the height, crop from the top. Then change the dimensions by changing the magnification factor. Appendix 1 of the GS1 Barcoding Getting it right document lists different magnification factors with different dimensions.

Colour

The colour of the barcode printed on the back of a card is of paramount importance.

Barcode scanners use a red light to scan. This means they will have difficulty “seeing” some colours, particularly shades of red or orange.

There also has to be a good contrast between the barcode symbols and the background. The bars need to be a dark colour placed on a light background – never inverted. The safest colour to use is black on white background.

Barcodes should not be made up from a mixture of colours from the 4 colour process. They should be printed in one pure colour – it doesn’t have to be black, but should have a high blue or green content and be printed on much paler colour.

Paper/Board considerations

If you’re planning to use a textured or speciality board, then consider the implications of this on the barcode. Can the barcode still be scanned if the surface of the board is not smooth? It’s worth discussing this with your Board Supplier and Printer.

5.2 Creating the barcode symbol (image)

There are a number of ways to create the actual barcode image. We’ve detailed some options below for you to explore and find the one you are most comfortable with. (Disclaimer: These are not GCA recommendations, but they are methods used by some of our members. Please check that the method you choose creates accurate barcodes for your needs).

5.3 Test your barcode

Once you’ve created your barcode, you MUST test it. You should test it during the design stage, and also the proof stage just before your cards go to print.

Barcode Verifiers can be quite expensive, but handheld barcode scanners are inexpensive to purchase online and simply connect to your PC via USB. You can also download a free barcode scanner app on your smartphone. Some Printers will check your barcodes for you, so ask them if they offer this service.

Additional Resources

• GS1 UK Website – packed with information and advice on using barcodes. In particular the “Getting It Right” document contains a lot of useful information.
• Barcode Advice Website – Additional support should you need it.
• The Barcode Warehouse – popular website for barcode hardware and software.