Barcode Font

Shopping for a barcode font can be a little confusing.  There are many product codes out there and they may or may not work for your purpose.  When deciding which barcode font you need, you have to ask yourself a few questions.  This will help determine what your needs are and which font is going to fulfill those needs.

The first question you need to ask is, “Do I need a UPC code?”  A UPC code is a code that is standard for retail products in North America.  Your UPC code must be purchased by the Uniform Code Council.  This is how every UPC code stays unique.  The barcode font for UPC would give you the ability to print your own barcodes, but you would first have to purchase the UPC code for your product through the proper channels.

Your next question will be, “What am I encoding?”  There is a barcode font that will just encode numbers; however there are also fonts that encode letters and numbers, special characters, and full ASCII fonts.  Code 2 of 5, for example, lets you encode only numbers.  However, the Codabar barcode font lets you encode numbers 0 to 9, letters A to D, and even some special characters. 

If you are not from North America you might need to ask, “Do I need an EAN?”  This is similar to the North American’s UPC code.  The European Article Numbering code is used to encode items in that part of the world.  The Barcode is assigned by EAN International which is the European equivalent of the Uniform Code Council.

The last question is, “Will this barcode font work with my computer and printer?”  Barcode fonts come in TrueType, PostScript and other type fonts.  Windows fonts work with TrueType fonts so they are very common.  However, if you have a different type of operating system you may need a different type of font.  You should also check to ensure that the barcode font will work on your printer.