Barcode labels allow businesses to track inventory and easily access sensitive product data. With a barcode scan, you can see product details, hand stock, pricing and even sales. There are many ways to create a barcode and labels for printing, and we will show you how to do the job in three simple steps.
If you need barcode labels to manage your store inventory and expedite inspection, you should use a POS system. They allow you to easily create and print barcode labels as needed, and more. We recommend QuickBarcode to generate Amazon Barcode because it has the best inventory and barcode management features, and also facilitates ordering, tracking sales, recording staff activities and helping you manage your entire business.
On the internet you will find various barcode generators, which have been programmed in Excel by enthusiasts. However, these enthusiasts are mostly professional Excel users. They therefore program macros and code in Visual Basic to bring their barcode generator to life. But because I write my blog mainly for beginners and (slightly) advanced students, I wanted to make an understandable barcode generator. One that makes EAN-13 barcodes and consists only of relatively simple tables and Excel formulas. And from which you as a reader can learn something.
European article numbering
The EAN-13 (now GTIN-13) barcode consists of European article numbering and black bars. To be able to make a barcode generator, you first have to understand how these article numbering and dashes work. Basically, the entire EAN code consists of 13 numbers:
- The first 2 numbers form the system code and indicate by which organization and in which country the barcode was issued. It does not always mean that the product in question was also made in the country of code issue.
- The next 5 numbers (3 to 7) are called the registration number and together with the first two they form the company number of the person who applied for the code.
- The following 5 numbers (8 to 12) form the article number.
- The 13th digit is a check digit that is calculated.
To buy barcodes with the correct black lines with the barcode generator, you must know the following principles:
- The first number of the 13-digit code is an immediate exception; this number precedes the barcode and is not itself converted to black bars.
- The barcode then starts with a starting block, consisting of the white-bar-white-bar-white pattern, with streaks that are longer than the other bars.
- The numbers in positions 2 to 7 are shown as short black lines (and white positions). There are 2 possibilities per number: The number is displayed according to the L-code or according to the G-code.
- In the middle of the barcode is an intermediate block, again consisting of the white-bar-white-bar-white pattern, with bars that are longer than the other bars.
- The numbers in positions 8 to 13 are shown as short black lines (and white positions). Each digit is displayed according to the R code.
- After the 13th digit there is an end block, again consisting of the pattern white-stripe-white-stripe-white, with stripes that are longer than the other stripes.
