Glossary

4-State Barcode

The barcode symbology used by Australia Post and UK Post Office. The name derives from the fact that the codes are made of four types (states) of bars.

Alpha-numeric

A character set containing letters, numbers and other characters

ANSI

The American National Standards Institute.

ASCII

The character set and code described in American National Standard Code for Information Interchange, ANSI X3.4-1977. Each ASCII character is encoded with seven bits.

Aspect Ratio

In a bar code symbol, the ratio of bar height to symbol length

Bar

The darker element of a barcode symbol

Character set

A set of characters available for encoding in the specified symbology

Check Digit/Character

A character whose value is calculated based on certain algorithm and used for the purpose of performing a mathematical check to ensure the accuracy of the data.

CMC-7

The official name of the MICR font developed by the French company Machines Bull which consists of ten numeric characters and five symbols. It has been the official French standard since 1964. Other countries using this font are found in Europe, South America and Asia. For more information click here.

DOI

Digital Object Identifier

DOI

Digital Object Identifier

DPID

Delivery Point Identifier. Eight digits uniquely identifying the Australia Post delivery points. Similar to DPC used by US Post mail.

E-13B

The official name of the font used in magnetic ink printing in the United States, Canada and several other countries. Use of the term E-13B generally implies both the character shape as well as the magnetic aspects of the printing. It consists of ten numeric characters and four symbols. For more information click here.

EAN

European Article Numbering. The EAN is a superset of UPC.

HIBCC

The Health Industry Business Communications Council

Intercharacter Gap

The space between two adjacent bar code characters. Only apply in a discrete symbology

ISBN

International Standard Book Number

ISSN

International Standard Serial Number

ISMN

International Standard Music Number

ISRC

International Standard Recording Code

Module

The narrowest nominal width unit of measure in a bar code.

OCA-A

An abbreviation commonly applied to the character set contained in ANSI standard X3.17-1981. A stylized font choice used for traditional OCR printing.

OCR-B

An abbreviation commonly applied to the character set contained in ANSI standard X3.17-1975. A stylized font choice used for traditional OCR printing.

Opacity

The property of a substrate material that minimizes show-through from the back side or the next sheet. The ratio of the reflectance with a black backing to the reflectance with a white backing. Ink opacity is the property of an ink that prevents the substrate from showing through.

POS

Point of sale

Postnet Barcode

A height-modulated numeric symbology developed by United States Post Office to encode delivery points.

Quiet Zone

A clear space preceding the start character and following the stop character. Also called clear area.

Scanner

An electronic device to acquire and convert reflected light from the bars and spaces of a symbol into electrical signals for processing by the decoder.

Self Checking

A combination of bar code characters including quiet zones, start/stop characters, A bar code or symbol using a checking algorithm which can be independently applied to each character to guard against undetected errors.

Symbol

A combination of bar code characters including quiet zones, start/stop characters, encoded message, and the check digits if required. A symbol refers to the whole scan able graphics representation.

Symbology Identifier

An optional three character code which may prefix transmitted data from a bar code reader indicating the symbology read and any options enabled in the reader or special features of a symbology encountering.

UCC

Uniform Code Council (www.uc-council.org)

USS

Uniform Symbol Specification, the series of symbology specifications published by AIM-USA.

Wand Scanner

A handheld scanning device used as a contact bar code reader

X Dimension

The nominal width dimension of the narrowest element in the symbol Element Bar or Space

Z Dimension

The achieved width of the narrow elements, calculated as the average of the average narrow bar width and the average narrow space width