Barcode & GS1 glossary
The vocabulary around barcodes is dense. These are the terms that actually matter when you label products, cases and pallets.
Numbers and identifiers
What is encoded, before you decide how to print it.
- GTIN – Global Trade Item Number, the product number itself, 8, 12, 13 or 14 digits.
- GS1 company prefix – the part of the number licensed to your company; everything else you assign yourself.
- Indicator digit – first digit of a GTIN-14, describing the packaging level (1–8) or a variable-measure item (9).
- Check digit – the final mod-10 digit that lets a scanner detect misreads.
- SSCC – Serial Shipping Container Code, an 18-digit number identifying one individual logistics unit (pallet), not the product on it.
Symbols and printing
How the number becomes a scannable image.
- Symbology – the encoding scheme: EAN-13, ITF-14, GS1-128, GS1 DataMatrix, QR.
- Application identifier (AI) – a prefix such as (01) GTIN, (10) batch, (17) best-before that says what the following data means.
- Quiet zone – the blank margin left and right of a symbol; without it, scanners fail.
- Bar width reduction – narrowing bars in the artwork to compensate for ink spread in printing.
- X-dimension – the width of the narrowest bar; it determines the whole symbol size and the minimum scan distance.
Quality and compliance
How a receiving warehouse judges your label.
- ISO/IEC 15416 – the print quality grade (A–F) verifiers report for linear barcodes.
- Human readable interpretation (HRI) – the digits printed under the bars for manual entry.
- GS1 General Specifications – the master rulebook for placement, size and data content.
Frequently asked questions
- Do I need an SSCC if I ship pallets?
- Yes, whenever your trading partner works with despatch advices. The SSCC identifies the pallet; the GTIN identifies what is on it.
- What grade should my barcodes reach?
- Most retail specifications require at least grade 1.5/C for retail symbols; logistics labels are often specified at 1.5/C as well.