EAN-13 Specification

EAN 13 the international version of the UPC. It contains two digits more than the UPC, requiring a total of 13 printed characters.

Structure

Each EAN bar code character is comprised of two bars and two spaces. The wide elements are multiples of the narrow elements. Wide elements are composed of one, two, three, or four narrow elements. There are a total of seven elements in each EAN character.

Symbol Creation

An EAN 13 symbol consists of a start character, a flag character, the left side data field, the left bar character, the right side data field, the check digit and stop character.

Start Character

The start character is used at the beginning of the symbol to provide the bar code reader with start instructions. The start character pattern is 101.

Left Side Data Field

The left side data field consists of six odd and even parity characters. Odd parity characters consist of three or five bars while even parity characters contain two or four bars. A suppressed number system is coded by the sequence of odd and even parity characters used in the left side data field.

Flag character

A suppressed number system is implied by the sequence of odd and even parity characters. First determine the number system required. Then use the table below to find the corresponding odd and even parity sequence which the left side data characters will follow.

Left Side Odd Parity Characters

Odd parity characters are comprised of three or five bars.

Left Side Even Parity Characters

Even parity characters are comprised of two or four bars.

left Bar

The left bar is a special character used to separate the left side data field from the right side data field. The left bar character pattern is 01010.

Right Side Data Field

The right side data field consists of six even parity characters: five digits plus the modulus 10 check digit.

Right Side Even Parity Characters

Unique bar patterns are used to distinguish the characters used in the right side data field from those used in the left side data field. For the right side data field, even parity characters are used which are different from the even parity characters used for the left side data field.

Stop Character

The stop character is used to signify the end of the symbol. The stop character pattern is 101.

EAN Character Set

Data  Left Hand A  Left Hand B  Right Hand

  0	0001101      0100111 	  1110010

  1 	0011001      0110011 	  1100110

  2 	0010011      0011011 	  1101100

  3 	0111101      0100001 	  1000010

  4 	0100011      0011101 	  1011100

  5 	0110001      0111001 	  1001110

  6 	0101111      0000101 	  1010000

  7 	0111011      0010001 	  1000100

  8 	0110111      0001001 	  1001000

  9 	0001011      0010111 	  1110100

First Flag Character Encodation for EAN 13

First Flag  Second Flag	Data Characters

Character   Character	1  2  3  4  5

    0    	A	A  A  A  A  A

    1		A	A  B  A  B  B

    2		A	A  B  B  A  B

    3		A	A  B  B  B  A

    4		A	B  A  A  B  B

    5		A	B  B  A  A  B

    6		A	B  B  B  A  A

    7		A	B  A  B  A  B

    8		A	B  A  B  B  A

    9		A	B  B  A  B  A

Check Character

Step 1: Designate the least significant digit postion as odd.

        5 7 6 3 5 7 9 0 1 2 5 8

        E O E O E O E O E O E O

Step 2: Sum all the digits in the odd (O) positions

        7+3+7+0+2+8 = 27

Step 3: Multiply the result by 3

        27 * 3 = 81

Step 4: Sum all the digits in the even (E) positions.

        5 + 6 + 5 + 9 + 1 + 5 = 31

Step 5: Add the result of Step 2 with the result of Step 4.

        81 + 31 = 112

Step 6: Subtract from the next higher multiple of 10.

        120 - 112 = 8.

        In this example, the check digit is 8.