Packaging

Member lesson

Barcodes, batch codes and practical constraints

Lesson 6 of 20 in Packaging.

Barcodes 101: Everything You Need to Know About UPC Codes with GS1 US | Webinar · Startup CPG
Lesson

A barcode is a machine-readable object with tolerances, and it fails in ways that are invisible on screen. It needs adequate contrast between bars and background, a quiet zone either side, a size within the permitted magnification range, and bars running in the orientation the scanner expects.

quiet zonenever on adark or shinybackgroundnever shorterthan thisa scanner reads contrast, not colourred bars on black scan as nothing at all
A barcode with its quiet zone, minimum height and the contrast a scanner needs.
A checkout scanner's red beam crosses two packs, and inset circles show black bars read as sharp stripes while red bars read as an empty white patch.
Under a checkout's red light, black bars scan cleanly, while bright red bars that look fine to us vanish into a blank patch. Scanners need dark bars on a light ground.
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  1. Question 1, locked

    A barcode is printed as red bars on a white ground. It looks like strong contrast on screen and in the hand. Why does it fail at the till?

    • Red ink spreads on board, so the bar widths fall outside the permitted magnification
    • Coloured bars have to be rotated before a scanner will read them
    • Scanners read in the red part of the spectrum, so red bars are close to invisible against white
    • The quiet zone has to be wider for any colour other than black
  2. Question 2, locked

    Which of these words means this? “The clear margin either side of a barcode. Encroach on it and the scan fails.”

    • Glue flap
    • Soft touch
    • Facing
    • Quiet zone
  3. Question 3, locked

    Which of these words means this? “The barcode's printed size as a percentage of nominal. There is a permitted range.”

    • Dieline
    • Direct print
    • Magnification
    • Flexible film

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