Barcodes and supported symbologies

Microplate Labeler User Guide : Creating label formats : Barcodes and supported symbologies

About this topic

This topic presents basic barcode concepts and provides examples of the supported symbologies.

Symbologies

Barcode symbologies define the mapping between a barcode and the text that it represents. There are more than 50 barcode symbologies. Barcode symbologies that are typically used in labs are those that create compact barcodes, such as Code 128, Code 39, and Interleaved 2 of 5. The Microplate Labeler also supports printing of 2D barcode symbologies. For examples of the symbologies that are supported by the Microplate Labeler printer, see Supported barcode symbologies.

Encoding and decoding

The printer includes encoding software that converts the text that you provide in a field into a barcode pattern.

If your Microplate Labeler has a barcode reader, the decoder software in the reader converts the pattern of a barcode back into text.

Encoding examples

The following example shows how a label will print when the word Test is represented in two types of fields:

• Field 1 as human-readable text

• Field 2 as a barcode that uses the Code 128 symbology

The next example uses the same symbology, but the words Test label are used for both fields. Notice that the barcode is longer because the amount of text encoded is greater.

In the following example, the words Test label are printed as a text field and as a barcode field using the Code 39 symbology. If you compare this with the previous example, you can see that the different symbology makes a different barcode pattern.

The two-dimensional (2D) barcodes can contain more information than conventional linear barcodes because they encode data in both horizontal and vertical directions.

Supported barcode symbologies

The following table provides a summary of the symbologies supported on the Microplate Labeler. You can find complete descriptions of the symbologies on the web at various sites, for example, www.wikipedia.org.

Symbology name	Summary description
Code 128	Variable-length, high-density, symbology that can encode all 128 ASCII characters. Has 106 different bar and space patterns and each pattern can have one of three different meanings, depending on which of three different character sets is employed.
Codabar	Variable-length, can encode the characters: 0123456789-$:/.+ABCD
Code 39 Full ASCII	Variable-length symbology that can encode the complete 128 ASCII character set.
Code 93	Variable-length symbology that can encode the complete 128 ASCII character set.
HIBC	Variable-length, modified version of Code 39. Health industry barcode (HIBC)
Interleaved 2 of 5	High-density variable-length, numeric-only (0–9) symbology that encodes numbers in pairs in an interleaved manner.
PDF417	High-density 2D symbology that essentially consists of a stacked set of smaller barcodes.
MicroPDF417	A 2D multi-row symbology based on PDF417, designed for applications requiring a greater area efficiency but lower data capacity than PDF417.
Data Matrix	High-density 2D matrix-style symbology that can encode up to 3116 characters from the entire 256-byte ASCII character set.

For information about...	See...
Customizing a label format template	Creating and editing label formats
Label format and content	About label formats and content
Setting up a VWorks labeling protocol	VWorks Automation Control User Guide, Print and Apply Task topic