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Code 128 is a barcode symbology and also a subject to the standards of the GS1 Organization. The high data density of this barcode enables many possible applications and is therefore very widely used.
Code 128 is a modern and neutral linear barcode type with high data density. It is widely used in industry and commerce because of its dynamic and complex design, which can represent both alphabetic and numeric characters without compromising the density of the barcode. Code 128 generally results in more compact barcodes compared to other methods such as Code 39, especially when the texts contain mostly digits.
Code 128 was developed in 1981 by the US Computer Identics Corporation for the automatic identification of data. The name 128 means that all 128 ASCII characters can be encoded. Ted Williams is credited with the invention.
After creation of Code 128, the code was adopted by EAN/UCC (now GS1) under the name EAN-128/UCC-128 (now GS1-128). Such barcodes include FNC1 characters, application identifiers and parentheses in the human-readable interpretation characters (see details below).
In general, Code 128 consists of seven sections:
GS1-128 is a standard developed by the GS1 organization based on Code 128. This standard defines a uniform syntax and semantics. The GS1-128 serves as a link between the data carrier and the data structure defined in the GS1 specification.
The main feature of the GS1-128 is the coding of data that goes beyond just product identification. For example, it can communicate an article number, a batch number and an expiration date all in one single GS1-128 barcode.
Due to the efficiency and flexibility of the GS1 system, it can be used in many areas, especially in the industrial or commercial sector.
The following bar codes are based upon GS1-128.
Generation of Code-128 and GS1-128 is supported by the following TEC-IT products:
Code-128
GS1-128
This Barcode Studio tutorial video demonstrates how to create an GS1-128 with two Application Identifiers delimited by FNC1.