European Article Number.html |
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A European Article Number (EAN) is a barcoding standard which is a superset of the original 12-digit Universal Product Code (UPC) system developed in North America. The EAN-13 barcode is defined by the standards organisation GS1. It is also called a Japanese Article Number (JAN) in Japan. UPC, EAN, and JAN numbers are collectively called Global Trade Item Numbers (GTIN), though they can be expressed in different types of barcodes.
The EAN-13 barcodes are used worldwide for marking retail goods. The less commonly used EAN-8 barcodes are used also for marking retail goods; however, they are usually reserved for smaller items, for example confectionery. In EAN-13 the symbol encodes 13 numerals divided into four parts:
- System code, the first two or three digits, usually identifying the country in which the manufacturer is registered (not necessarily where the product is actually made). When the EAN-13 barcode is a conversion of a 10-digit ISBN or ISMN code, the system code will be 978 or 979 respectively, or 977 for ISSNs.
- Manufacturer code, consisting of four, five or six digits depending on the length of the system or country code.
- Product code, consisting of five digits.
- Check digit, a single checksum digit. The check digit is computed modulo 10, where the weights in the checksum calculation alternate 1 and 3. In particular, since the weights are relatively prime to 10 the EAN system will detect all single digit errors. But since the difference of consecutive weights is even, the EAN system does not detect all adjacent transposition errors.
2-digit (EAN 2) and 5-digit (EAN 5) supplemental barcodes may be added for a total of 14 or 17 data digits. These are generally used for periodicals (to indicate the serial number) and books (to indicate the selling price) respectively.
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Country codes
- Further information: List of GS1 country codes
The first three digits of the barcode of any product represents the country. Note that EAN codes beginning with 0 are rarely used, as this is just an addition to a 12-digit UPC. Since most scanners and registers worldwide can read both equally, most manufacturers in North America still only use UPC.
Encoding EAN13
To encode an EAN-13 barcode, the digits are first split into 3 groups, the first digit, the first group of 6 and the last group of 6. The first group of six is encoded using a scheme whereby each digit has two possible encodings, one of which has even parity and one of which has odd parity. The first digit is encoded by selecting a pattern of choices between these two encodings for the next six digits, according to the table below. (Unlike the other digits, the first digit is not represented directly by a pattern of bars.) All digits in the last group of six digits are encoded using a single set of patterns which are the same patterns used for UPC.
If the first digit is zero, all digits in the first group of six are encoded using the patterns used for UPC, hence a UPC barcode is also an EAN-13 barcode with the first digit set to zero.
| First digit | First group of 6 digits | Last group of 6 digits |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | LLLLLL | RRRRRR |
| 1 | LLGLGG | RRRRRR |
| 2 | LLGGLG | RRRRRR |
| 3 | LLGGGL | RRRRRR |
| 4 | LGLLGG | RRRRRR |
| 5 | LGGLLG | RRRRRR |
| 6 | LGGGLL | RRRRRR |
| 7 | LGLGLG | RRRRRR |
| 8 | LGLGGL | RRRRRR |
| 9 | LGGLGL | RRRRRR |
| Digit | L-code | G-code | R-code |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
Note: Entries in the R-column are bitwise complements of the respective entries in the L-column. Entries in the G-column are the entries in the R-column reversed. See pictures of all codes against a colored background.
Checksum calculation
The checksum is calculated taking a varying weight value times the value of each number in the barcode to make a sum. The sum is then rounded up to the nearest whole ten number, if it isn't already.
Weight
The weight for a specific position in the EAN-code is either 3 or 1. An EAN18 code starts with a weight of 3. All other valid EAN-codes get their weight values for the position of the code from this table making their code line up to the right:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 |
Calculation
Taking the numbers from an EAN 8 code we get: 7351353 or in the table:
| Position | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| Weight | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 |
| Code | 7 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 3 | ||||||||||
| Sums | 21 | 3 | 15 | 1 | 9 | 5 | 9 |
The sum from this barcode is then: 63
Rounding this up to its nearest ten we get: 70
The nearest ten minus the sum makes the checksum: 70 - 63 = 7
The complete EAN 8 code is then: 73513537
See also
- Provides information on EAN codes vs. UPC codes.
- Free Ean13-8 Barcode Maker
- Electronic Data Interchange
- Global Electronic Party Information Register (GEPIR) a searchable distributed database of GS1 codes
- GTIN
- EAN 8, another form of EAN barcode
- upcdatabase, another online barcode database
- Barcode Perl modules at CPAN
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