UPC / EAN Barcode Font Printing

UPC / EAN Barcode Font Size
The UPC / EAN font characters are all represented in a single font named UPCEAN. UCC standards specify that our UPC / EAN barcode font should be printed at 20 points. However, they allow a magnification factor of .8 to 2.0 which allows printing at 18 to 36 points. For best results, print the UPC / EAN barcode font at the largest point size and height possible.

UPC / EAN Barcode Font Height
Fonts with "S" in the name are "shortened height" fonts that are below what the UCC recommends but we have seen these heights in use with UPC-A and UPC-E barcodes and they do scan properly. Fonts with "M" in the name are medium height fonts and are recommended for printing EAN-8 barcodes. Fonts with "L" in the name are the largest with a height of approximately 22mm when printed at 20 points. This height is recommended for printing UPC-A, UPC-E and EAN-13 barcodes. Other various font heights are marked with a number that represents the height in MM of the barcode (minus the human-readable number) printed at 20 points.

About Print Quality
When printing the UPC / EAN barcode font at 18 or 20 points, a high quality laser printer with a 600 DPI or greater should be used; it may also be necessary to reduce the print intensity if you have increased this in the past to a value greater than normal. The proper output can be determined by examining the "normal guard pattern". The space between the two bars of the "normal guard pattern" should be approximately the same as the bar to the left or right of the space.

About Check Digits and Character Sets
To help users integrate barcodes into their applications, we provide font automation tools such as MS Office Macros for Word, Excel and Access, LotusScript, Visual Basic, FoxPro, ANSI C and JAVA Source Code, ActiveX DLLs for development platforms that support Microsoft's ActiveX / COM technology, Crystal Reports User Function Libraries (UFLs) and a check digit calculation application with Visual Basic source code as a free download for programmers and technical users. The DLLs, macros, UFLs and code provided automatically format the start, stop and check characters to the barcode font.

If your application supports ActiveX in Windows, we also sell easy to use "drag and drop" Linear ActiveX Controls that support UPC and EAN as well as other barcode types and they automatically calculate everything so you don't have to be concerned with macros and source code.

Main
Specifications
Licensing Agreement

Price List & Order Form