The EAN/UPC system is a worldwide
product marking system that maintains uniqueness of every product
manufactured globally that is sold at point of sale. There are two parts
to the Universal Product Code (UPC). One is the symbology and the other is
the coding system. UPC is
ubiquitous. When people think bar code, the image in their mind is a UPC
symbol. It has been successfully employed in the retail industry in the
United States and Canada since 1973. The UPC coding system is designed to
uniquely identify a product and its manufacturer. There are two versions
of a UPC code commonly used; Version A, Version E. A third version,
Version D, was defined but never used successfully.
The European Article Numbering system
(EAN) is a superset of UPC and was initially introduced in 1977. EAN-13 is used worldwide for
marking retail goods. It encodes 13 characters: the first two to three
digits are flag characters which represent a country code, followed by 10
data digits and a checksum.
Since UPC codes are subsets of EAN codes, systems set up to use EAN
can also use UPC. The reverse is not always true however. Almost all scanners can
auto-discriminate between EAN and UPC, but older host databases cannot
accept the extra digit that is part of the EAN structure. Therefore, in the US, it is not
possible to use EAN codes yet.
Each country has a coding authority
(or numbering association) that maintains a central database of the code
assignments to manufacturers. The Uniform Code Council administers the UPC
system for the United States. In Canada, the Product Code Council of
Canada carries out the administration of manufacturers numbers. The EAN
system is under the overall direction of the International Article
Numbering Association, based in Brussels, Belgium. Each country using the EAN system maintains a separate Article Numbering Association.
EAN
has two versions, EAN-13 and EAN-8, encoding 13 and 8 digits respectively.
An EAN-13 symbol contains the same number of bars as UPC Version A, but
encodes a 13 digit from the character set pattern of the left-hand 6
digits, in the same manner as the encodation of the check digit in a UPC
Version E symbol. The first
two or three digits of an EAN symbol are called the country flag
characters and identify the issuing country.
The actual UPC code is
a 12-digit code. The first 6 digits represent the manufacturer of the
labeled item. The UPC-A Code and the assignment of manufacturer ID numbers
is controlled in the United States by the Uniform Code Council. The next 5
digits identify a specific product assigned by the manufacturer who is
responsible for maintaining the uniqueness of their product line. The
twelfth digit is a Modulo 10 checksum, based on the previous 11 digits of
data. UPC is a fixed length, numeric, continuous symbology using four
element widths.
The first digit of the UPC-A Code represents the
number system as well as being part of manufacturer's identification.
Number systems "0", "6" and "7" are assigned with the five digits to
identify the manufacturer; others have special uses as follows:
UPC-E
UPC-E is a
variation of the UPC-A symbol that is used only with number system 0. It
has six explicitly encoded data digits, and an implicitly encoded seventh
digit (check character). It is used for identifying products in small
packages.
In addition to the requirement that the first digit of
the barcode (number system) must be zero, there are four rules that
determine what UPC codes can be printed using the compressed UPC-E
format:
The EAN-8 symbol is smaller in size
than EAN-13 like the UPC-E symbol is smaller than UPC-A. However, it does
not encode the larger EAN-13 data structure by removing zeroes. It employs
a smaller identification number that is assigned by EAN numbering
organizations. Like the larger UCC/EAN-13 data structure, EAN-8’s may use
various numbers of digits to identify the numbering organization or
company.
2-Digit and 5-Digit Supplemental
Codes for Periodicals and Books
EAN /
UPC codes may be augmented with a two-digit supplemental bar code to
indicate the issue number for a periodical. Five digit supplemental codes
are used with the product number to identify paperback
books.
Details:
EAN /
UPC
Character Set: Numeric, 0 - 9
Encodation: Two
bars and two spaces are required to encode a character
Start/Stop
Pattern:
All EAN/UPC symbols
have what are commonly referred to as guard bar patterns. These are a
series of narrow bar and space elements at the beginning, end, and middle
(except UPC-E) of the symbol. These guard bar patterns actually create two
symbols by dividing the symbol into two parts and thereby making the
symbol taller than it is wide. This height allows for easier scanning.
Tr The guard bar pattern is always 3 elements: a narrow bar, narrow space, and narrow bar.
Code Type: Modular, fixed
length (thirteen digits with EAN-13; twelve digits with UPC-A; eight
digits with EAN-8; six explicitly encoded but eight human readable digits
with UPC-E)
Human Readable: UPC-A all twelve digits required.
UPC-E six digits required (the Number System Character and the Check Digit
are implied), but the UCC promotes printing all eight digits. EAN-13 all
thirteen digits required; EAN-8 eight digits required (the Flag Character,
Numbering System Character, and the Check Digit are implied).
Check
Digit: Required (Modulus 10 calculation)
Encoded Information
UPC-A:
Number System Character - one digit
Manufacturer
Identification Number - six digits
Product Identification Number - five
digits
Check Digit -one digit
Encoded Information
EAN-13:
Flag Character (Country Code) - Two to three
digits
Manufacturer Identification Number - Four to five
digits
Product Identification Number - Five digits
Check Digit - One
digit
Allowable Sizes:
Sizes for
the EAN / UPC symbols are determined by a "magnification" factor which is
based on the "X" dimension size. These magnifications range from 80% to
200% of the nominal size, or 100% size (1.46 inches in width, 1.020 inches
in height, "X" dimension - 13 mils).