Notes about Bar Codes

    Note:
  1. A barcode cannot be positioned on or outside of the logical page.

    For example, the page definition below results in a position of 0 0 which is on the logical page boundary. The following example results in a printer error:

    PAGEDEF XMPL1 REPLACE YES;
SETUNITS 1 IN 1 IN LINESP 6 LPI;
    FONT FNT1 CR10;
    FONT FNT2 CR10;
  PAGEFORMAT IBMSSN WIDTH 9.5 HEIGHT 4.0     /* PORTRAIT */
  DIRECTION ACROSS;
  PRINTLINE
    FONT FNT1 REPEAT 1 CHANNEL 1 POSITION 0 0;
     FIELD START 671 LENGTH 13 POSITION 0 0
      BARCODE 3OF9
      TYPE 1 MODWIDTH 17
      SSASTERISK ON;

  2. If you want to suppress blanks, use the SUPPBLANKS parameter.
  3. SUPPBLANKS for bar code data will cause the entire field to be ignored if it is all blanks.
  4. The height of the barcode symbol is controlled by the barcode symbology definition and by various BCOCA parameters. The width of the symbol is usually dependent on the amount of data to be encoded and by choices made in various BCOCA parameters.
    Linear Symbologies
    The element-height and height-multiplier parameters specify the height of the symbol. For some barcode types, these parameters also include the height of the human-readable interpretation (HRI). Refer to the description of the element-height parameter in the Data Stream and Object Architectures: Bar Code Object Content Architecture Reference, S544-3766 for a description of the height for specific linear symbols. Some barcode symbologies (Australia Post Bar Code, Japan Postal Bar Code, POSTNET, RM4SCC, and REDTAG) explicitly specify the barcode symbol height; in this case, the element-height and height-multiplier parameters are ignored.
    Two-Dimensional Matrix Symbologies
    The MaxiCode symbology specifies a fixed physical size, nominally 28.14 mm wide by 26.91 mm high; the module-width, element-height, and height-multiplier parameters are ignored for MaxiCode values.

    Data Matrix symbols are rectangular and are made up of a pattern of light and dark squares (called modules). The size of each module is specified in the module-width parameter and the number of rows and columns of these modules is controlled by the desired-number-of-rows and desired-row-size parameters and the amount of data to be encoded. The element-height and height-multiplier parameters are ignored for Data Matrix symbols.

    QR Code symbols are square and are made up of a pattern of light and dark squares (called modules). The size of each module is specified in the module-width parameter; the number of rows and columns of these modules is controlled by the version parameter, the error correction level selected, and the amount of data to be encoded. The element-height and height-multiplier parameters are ignored for QR Code symbols.

    Two-Dimensional Stacked Symbologies
    PDF417 symbols are rectangular and are made up of a pattern of light and dark rectangles (called modules). The size of each module is specified in the module-width, element-height, and height-multiplier parameters and the number of rows and columns of these modules is controlled by the data-symbols and rows parameters and the amount of data to be encoded. A PDF417 symbol must contain at least three rows.
Parent topic: More About Bar Code Parameters