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You can use the GS1 Application Identifier Data Source wizard to add application identifiers to your barcode. An application identifier (AI) is a sequence of characters that relates a data string to a physical or logical thing, such as an item number, serial number, or sell-by date.

The GS1-128 (UCC/EAN-128) specifications define numerous AIs. AIs immediately precede the string of characters that they identify and specify the length of the data string that follows. Some AIs specify data fields that contain a fixed number of characters, and others specify data fields that contain a variable number of characters.

For example, the shipping container code that is shown in the following image is a fixed-length field that contains exactly 14 characters. The AI for a container code is "01". (The "2" at the end of the human readable interpretation is a check digit that BarTender automatically generates.)

By contrast, the serial number is a variable-length field that can contain up to 20 characters. Its AI is "21," and no check digit is required.

AIs can be concatenated to form a longer string that contains more than one type of data. 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). The FNC1 "^1" character acts as this field separator. It signals to BarTender that the variable-length data field has ended and that another data field is beginning.

When you use the FNC1 character as a field separator, you must add it manually to the barcode data string. For more information about how to do this, refer to Entering Function Characters.