EAN-13 Barcode Information with Check Digit

Introduction of EAN-13 and generate EAN-13 in Windows applications, ASP.NET, C# and VB.NET
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EAN-13Barcode Symbology Overview
Definition of EAN-13
EAN-13, formerly called European Article Number, is now named International Article Number, with the acronym EAN left. It is an upgrade version of UPC-A, being widely used through the global.
Application of EAN-13
  • Marking the goods that are sold in supermarket or some other retail stores
Barcode Specification of EAN-13
  • GS1 General Specifications (Issue 2, May-2008)
EAN-13 Barcode Features Overview
  • The encodable character set of EAN-13 is numeric, including 0 to 9. It has the nature of self-checking, with one mandatory Check Digit.
  • It's a continuous and omni-directionally decodable bar code type, with a fixed length of 13 characters, including the Check Digit.
  • It has four elements per symbol character composed of two bars and two spaces, each with a width of one, two, three, or four modules. There are 7 modules per symbol character.
  • Non-data overhead amounts to 18 modules.
  • EAN-13 has two implement forms EAN-13+2 and EAN-13+5 which are appended 2 and 5 digits respectively to EAN-13 symbology. 2 digits add-on symbology is used to indicate magazines and newspaper issue numbers while 5 digits add-on symbology is used to mark suggested retail price of books.
EAN-13 Barcode Structure Overview
An EAN-13 includes, from left to right, a leading Quiet Zone, a normal Guard Bar Pattern, six symbol characters from number sets A and B, a centre Guard Bar Pattern, six symbol characters from number set C, a normal Guard Bar Pattern, and a trailing Quiet Zone.
The beginning 3 characters of EAN-13 refer to country code, followed by 4 characters representing manufacturer code, then the later 5 characters are production code, and the last one is Check Digit.
EAN-13 Barcode Dimension Overview
Barcode Width of EAN-13
The dimensions of EAN-13 should follow the following rules: a) The X-dimension is 0.33 millimeter (0.013 inch) in nominal size. b) Multiply the X-dimension by the module width of each bar and space (1, 2, 3 or 4), and you can get the width of each bar and space, and note that the characters 1, 2, 7 and 8 are not included, for which the bars and spaces are reduced or enlarged by one-thirteenth of a module to provide a uniform distribution of bar width tolerances. c) The minimum width of the quiet zone is 7X. d) The symbol length should be 113 modules, including the minimum Quiet Zones.
Barcode Height of EAN-13
The approximate height of the symbol, including the human readable information, is technically 25.9 millimeters (1.0 inch), complying with GS1 standard.
EAN-13 Check Digit Calculation Example
Before encoding an EAN-13 symbol, the software should calculate the checksum digit correctly which will be included in the barcode. Following are steps for calculating the check digit:
  • Regard the right-most digit of the symbol as in an "odd" position, and assign odd and even alternately to each character moving from right to left.
  • Add up the digits in all odd positions, and multiply the result by 3.
  • Sum the digits in all even positions.
  • Plus together the totals calculated in steps 2 and 3.
  • The check digit is the number which, when added to the result calculated in step 4, getting a number evenly divisible by 10.
  • If the sum calculated in step 4 is evenly divisible by 10, the check digit is "0" (not 10).
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