GS1 Application Identifier Data Source Wizard

The GS1-128 (UCC/EAN-128) specifications define numerous application identifiers. An application identifier is a sequence of characters that relates a data string to a physical or logical thing, such as an item number, serial number, or due date. Application identifiers immediately precede the string of characters that they identify; furthermore, they specify the length of the data string that follows. Some application identifiers specify data fields containing a fixed number of characters while others specify data fields containing a variable number of characters.

For example, the shipping container code shown in the following image is a fixed-length field that contains exactly 14 characters. The application identifier for a container code is "01". Note that the "2" on the end is a check digit automatically generated by BarTender.

In contrast, the serial number is a variable-length field that may contain up to 20 characters. It's application identifier is "21" and no check digit is required.

Application identifiers can be concatenated together to form a larger string with more than one type of data in it. When a variable-length data field is combined with other fields in a barcode, it must be immediately followed by a field separator character (unless it is the last field in the barcode symbol — see note below). The FNC1 "^1" character acts as this field separator. It signals to BarTender software that the variable length data field has ended and that another data field is beginning.

When the FNC1 character is used as a field separator, it must be added manually to the barcode data string using the procedure described in the topic called Entering Function Characters into the GS1-128 (UCC/EAN-128) Data String.

When multiple application identifiers and their fields must be concatenated and when only one of them is of variable length, we recommend locating the variable-length field at the end of the symbol because no separator character is then required.

BarTender's GS1 Application Identifier Data Source Wizard can walk you through the steps of adding application identifiers to your barcode.

Supported Symbologies

 

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