Генератор на баркодове

Free barcode generator — Code 128, EAN-13 and UPC-A

This free online barcode generator creates scannable, standards-compliant barcodes entirely in your browser: Code 128 for any text or numbers (SKUs, asset tags, event tickets, Amazon FBA FNSKU labels), and EAN-13 / UPC-A for retail products. The preview updates live as you type, check digits are computed and validated automatically, and you can download a crisp vector SVG or high-resolution PNG — no sign-up, no watermark, no daily limit.

Unlike enterprise generators like TEC-IT (barcode.tec-it.com) or online-barcode-generator.net that send your data to their servers, everything here is encoded locally in JavaScript. Your product numbers, internal SKUs and serial data stay on your device — giving you both privacy and instant results with no page reload between each barcode.

Which barcode type should you use?

Code 128 is the workhorse for everything that isn't retail checkout. It encodes all 128 ASCII characters at high density, automatically switches to the compact Subset C mode for digit-heavy data, and is the standard format for logistics, warehouse labelling, membership cards and Amazon FBA's FNSKU labels. If your data contains letters — like 'WH-1000XM5' — Code 128 is your format.

EAN-13 (13 digits, used worldwide) and UPC-A (12 digits, dominant in North America) are the retail point-of-sale formats. They are numeric-only and their numbers must be GS1-issued GTINs for products sold in stores — a UPC-A is simply an EAN-13 with a leading zero, and modern scanners read both formats interchangeably. For URLs, long text or richer data, use a QR code instead.

Check digits handled automatically

Every EAN-13 and UPC-A barcode ends in a check digit computed from the other digits using a weighted modulo-10 formula. Scanners recompute it on every read and reject mismatches, which catches misreads and typos before they corrupt your inventory or checkout system. Enter 12 digits (11 for UPC-A) and this tool appends the correct check digit. Enter all 13 (or 12) digits and it validates yours — telling you the correct value if it's wrong, rather than silently rendering an unscannable barcode like some competing tools do.

Code 128 also includes an internal checksum computed automatically, plus the correct start, stop and subset-switching characters — including Subset C encoding for long digit runs, which keeps numeric barcodes short and scan-friendly. You don't need to configure any of this manually; the encoder chooses the optimal encoding automatically.

SVG for print, PNG for screens — and how this compares to TEC-IT

Scannability lives and dies on edge sharpness, so the generator's primary output is SVG — a vector format whose bars are mathematically precise at any print size, from a small product label to an A4 sheet. The PNG export renders at double resolution so it remains crisp in documents and on-screen displays at the rendered size. 'Copy SVG code' drops the raw SVG markup straight into your clipboard for pasting directly into HTML templates or design tools like Figma.

TEC-IT's barcode generator at barcode.tec-it.com is one of the most widely used alternatives, but it sends every barcode request to TEC-IT's servers — your product codes, serial numbers and customer data cross the wire. Barcodes Inc and online-barcode-generator.net work the same way. UtiloKit encodes entirely in your browser, so nothing leaves your device. Bar width and height sliders let you match your label stock specification. Every barcode includes correctly sized quiet zones — the mandatory blank margins on either side — which are the most commonly violated rule in DIY barcodes and the leading cause of first-pass scan failures.

Printing, scanning and real-world use

Print black bars on white with a laser or inkjet printer. Avoid coloured bars, grey backgrounds, textured paper, and never scale a PNG image non-proportionally. Test one label with any phone scanning app before printing a full sheet. For retail products, the GS1-registered GTIN is a legal requirement in most countries; for everything internal — inventory, assets, libraries, events — your own numbering with Code 128 is perfectly legal and completely free.

Because this generator runs offline once loaded, it keeps producing labels even without an internet connection in a warehouse or stockroom. There are no task caps, no subscription tiers and no need to create an account — generate as many barcodes as your project requires, download each one individually, and use them immediately on the same device or send them to a label printer.

Use on iPhone, Android and desktop — no install needed

This barcode generator works in any modern browser on any device — no app installation required. On iPhone and Android, open the page, type your barcode data, and tap the download button to save an SVG or PNG directly to your Photos or Files app. The interface adapts to small screens and works smoothly on tablets and Chromebooks too.

Server-based generators like TEC-IT (barcode.tec-it.com) and online-barcode-generator.net require an internet connection to encode each barcode. This tool, once loaded, encodes entirely in the browser — so it functions even in a warehouse with a weak mobile signal, on a locked-down corporate device, or in airplane mode after the initial page load. Whether you need one FNSKU for an Amazon shipment or hundreds of Code 128 labels for inventory, you get them instantly without throttling, rate limits or subscription plans.

The invention of the barcode: from Morse code to the supermarket checkout

The barcode's origin story starts on a beach. In 1948, Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver, graduate students at Drexel Institute of Technology, overheard a local supermarket executive asking faculty to research a system that could automatically read product information at checkout. Woodland found inspiration sitting on Miami Beach: he drew his fingers through the sand and noticed that widening the dots and dashes of Morse code into wide and narrow lines would create a pattern that could be read optically. He extended this into a concentric bull's-eye pattern, and on 7 October 1952 the pair were granted US Patent 2,612,994 — the first barcode patent — describing a system that could encode data in printed bars and read it with a photoelectric scanner. Woodland also drew inspiration from the optical soundtracks on cinema film, where an analog audio signal is stored as a varying-width transparent strip alongside the film frame.

The technology then lay largely dormant for two decades because the hardware needed to make it practical did not yet exist at a commercial price. Reliable laser scanning required helium-neon lasers, which did not become affordable until the early 1970s. In 1973, IBM submitted a proposal to the grocery industry's Ad Hoc Committee on a Uniform Grocery Product Code, describing the Universal Product Code (UPC) — a standardised 12-digit numbering system for North American retail. IBM engineer George Laurer designed the specific rectangular symbol with evenly spaced vertical bars that was ultimately selected by the industry over competing bull's-eye formats, partly because rectangular bars tolerated smearing in the print direction far better than concentric circles. The first commercial UPC scanner went live at a Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio on 26 June 1974, where a cashier scanned a 10-pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum — the item and its price were recorded and the pack was kept as a museum piece. The gap between Woodland and Silver's 1952 patent and this first commercial deployment was 22 years, almost entirely explained by the time it took laser and computing hardware to reach mass-market economics.

The international counterpart to UPC-A followed quickly. EAN-13 (European Article Number, now formally the International Article Number) was standardised in 1976 by a consortium of European nations. It added a 13th digit — a country or region prefix — while remaining fully backward compatible with UPC-A by treating a leading zero as the US/Canada prefix. That single design decision means every scanner built for EAN-13 can read UPC-A without any modification, unifying global retail scanning into a single hardware ecosystem.

1D barcode formats and where each one is used

UPC-A encodes exactly 12 digits in a fixed structure: one number system digit (0 or 1 for most branded goods; 2 for variable-weight items like deli meat; 3 for drugs; 5 for coupons), five digits identifying the manufacturer (assigned by GS1 US), five digits identifying the specific product within that manufacturer's catalogue, and one check digit. This rigid 12-digit constraint was deliberate — it makes the symbol a fixed width that fits neatly below a standard grocery item and can be read at any scan angle on a rotating-mirror checkout scanner. EAN-13 prepends a two- or three-digit GS1 country prefix before the company and product codes, giving 13 digits total. ISBN-13 is technically a specialisation of EAN-13 — books carry a prefix of 978 or 979 (the so-called 'Bookland' prefix), followed by a language/country group, a publisher code and an item number, with the final check digit recalculated. Since January 2007 the 10-digit ISBN was replaced by the 13-digit ISBN-13 to harmonise with the EAN system.

Code 128 trades fixed-width constraint for versatility: it encodes all 128 ASCII characters — uppercase and lowercase letters, digits, punctuation and control characters — at a high character density achieved by using multiple bar and space widths. It automatically selects between three internal subsets: Subset A for uppercase and control characters, Subset B for the full printable ASCII set, and Subset C for pairs of digits, which encodes two digits per symbol character and makes long numeric strings up to 40% shorter than any other 1D format. This Subset C optimisation is why Code 128 is the dominant format for logistics labels, warehouse management systems, Amazon FBA FNSKU labels and GS1-128 shipping labels — all of which carry long numeric strings like GTINs, lot numbers and serial numbers. Code 39 is an older rival: it supports only 43 characters (digits, uppercase letters and six symbols) at a lower density — each character requires nine elements with defined wide/narrow ratios rather than Code 128's variable-width scheme. Its only real advantage is that it requires no check digit for compliance in many legacy systems. It persists in US military logistics (MIL-STD-129), government supply chains and car parts manufacturing, where installed scanner hardware dates back decades. For new projects, Code 128 is almost always the better choice.

ITF-14 (Interleaved Two of Five) encodes exactly 14 digits and is designed specifically for printing directly on corrugated cardboard — the bearer bars (bold lines at top and bottom) help scanners accommodate the distortion, ink spread and surface roughness that are inevitable when printing on cardboard. It carries the GTIN-14 (a 14-digit wrapper around a product's GTIN-12 or GTIN-13) identifying the outer carton, shipper or pallet configuration. You will find ITF-14 on virtually every wholesale carton in a distribution centre. PDF417 is technically a stacked linear barcode (multiple 1D rows stacked vertically) rather than a pure 2D matrix, but it achieves 2D data densities — it stores up to 1,108 bytes or 1,850 ASCII characters per symbol and is the format mandated for US and Canadian driver's licences (encoding name, address, DOB, height and licence class), airline boarding passes under the IATA BCBP standard, and transport documents where a conventional laser scanner (rather than a camera) must be able to read the code.

GS1 standards, GTINs and the supply chain behind every barcode

GS1 is the global not-for-profit organisation that manages the standards underpinning virtually all commercial barcoding. Founded in 1977 (then as the EAN Association), it today operates in 116 countries and assigns the company prefixes that make every retail barcode globally unique. When a company joins GS1 and receives a prefix, it becomes the sole entity authorised to issue GTINs (Global Trade Item Numbers) under that prefix — the 12-, 13- or 14-digit identifiers that live inside UPC-A, EAN-13 and ITF-14 barcodes. A GTIN is not just a number on a label; it is the key that unlocks a product's attributes in retailer databases, distributor systems and customs declarations worldwide. Retailers like Walmart, Target and Tesco mandate GS1-registered GTINs before a product can be listed in their systems — a barcode with an invented number may scan correctly but will return a 'product not found' error at every point of sale.

GS1 Application Identifiers (AIs) extend the basic GTIN concept within Code 128 and DataMatrix barcodes. An AI is a two-to-four digit numeric prefix, enclosed in parentheses in the human-readable text, that tells the scanner what type of data follows. AI (01) signals a GTIN-14. AI (10) signals a lot or batch number. AI (17) signals a best-before date in YYMMDD format. AI (21) signals a serial number. This system — formalised as GS1-128 when used in Code 128 — is the backbone of pharmaceutical track-and-trace, fresh food date coding and medical device serialisation. Under the US Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA), every prescription drug package sold in the United States since 2023 must carry a 2D barcode (typically DataMatrix) encoding AI (01) GTIN + AI (10) lot number + AI (17) expiry + AI (21) serial number, enabling end-to-end tracing from manufacturer to patient. The GS1 Digital Link standard, rolled out from 2021 and targeted to replace most product 1D barcodes on consumer packaging by 2027, encodes a full resolvable HTTPS URL in a QR code or DataMatrix that links to a GS1-compliant resolver — returning a landing page, full product data, recalls, or consumer-engagement content depending on who scans it (shopper, retailer, regulator or logistics system).

For small businesses, the practical upshot of GS1 is straightforward. If you sell through brick-and-mortar retail or list on Amazon, Walmart Marketplace or Google Shopping, your product number must come from a GS1 member company prefix you own — not from a third-party reseller of 'GS1 barcodes', which are often single GTINs that cannot be verified back to your brand in retailer lookup systems. GS1 US offers a 10-barcode starter bundle for small sellers, while a full company prefix that lets you assign hundreds of GTINs is also available on a subscription basis. For purely internal uses — warehouse labels, asset tags, internal inventory, event wristbands — none of this applies, and Code 128 with your own numbering is free and immediate.

2D barcodes: QR code, DataMatrix, Aztec and MaxiCode compared

QR codes (Quick Response codes, invented by Denso Wave in 1994 for tracking automotive parts) store data in a 2D grid of black modules on a white background, with three distinctive square finder patterns in the corners that let any camera determine position and orientation instantly. A QR code can store up to 3,116 numeric characters or 2,953 bytes of binary data, with four error correction levels (L/M/Q/H) where the highest level allows up to 30% of the code to be physically damaged and still decoded correctly. The omnidirectional readability and the ubiquity of smartphone cameras make QR the obvious choice for any consumer-facing URL, contact card, payment link or authentication flow. DataMatrix, by contrast, is the format of choice inside manufacturing. Its square or rectangular matrix of black and white cells can encode up to 3,116 numeric characters in a symbol as small as 1 mm² when laser-etched directly onto a surface — a capability QR cannot match because QR's three-corner finder pattern requires a minimum physical size. DataMatrix is the mandated format for marking individual circuit boards, medical instruments, pharmaceutical packages under GS1/DSCSA and aerospace components under the AS9132 standard. Where a QR code at 1 cm² is readable by a phone, a DataMatrix at 2 mm × 2 mm is readable only by a dedicated industrial imager — exactly the right tool in a PCB assembly line.

Aztec Code uses a concentric bullseye-style centre finder pattern (a deliberate spiritual successor to Woodland's original 1952 concept) that allows very compact symbols with less overhead than QR's three large finder squares. It is the mandatory format for Eurostar cross-channel rail tickets, UK National Rail mobile tickets and many European transit authorities — the compact size and efficient encoding mean it fits cleanly on a ticket without dominating the design. MaxiCode, developed by UPS and used exclusively by UPS and a handful of other carriers, is a fixed-size 2D symbol consisting of hexagonal cells arranged around a central bullseye. Its fixed 'postage stamp' size is intentional: MaxiCode is designed to be read by high-speed fixed-position laser scanners that sort packages on a conveyor belt at up to 600 packages per minute, where a variable-size format could straddle a scanner field boundary. The distinction between these formats is almost always driven by the scanning hardware in the target environment: consumer smartphone cameras favour QR; high-speed conveyor scanners favour MaxiCode; miniaturised industrial marking favours DataMatrix; transit ticketing favours Aztec.

When choosing between a 1D barcode and a 2D barcode, the decision usually comes down to the installed scanner base. Point-of-sale scanners in most grocery and retail environments are still optimised for 1D laser scanning, and a UPC-A or EAN-13 remains the required format for retail checkout globally — though GS1's 2027 target (the 'Sunrise 2027' initiative) aims to transition retail point-of-sale scanners worldwide to read 2D codes so that products can carry a single GS1 Digital Link QR code instead of a 1D UPC plus a separate QR for consumer engagement. Until that infrastructure is in place, most consumer products need both: a traditional UPC-A or EAN-13 for checkout, and optionally a QR code for consumer-facing content. For supply chain, logistics and internal labelling, the question is purely one of data volume and scanner type — Code 128 for standard warehouse scanners, DataMatrix for miniaturised or pharmaceutical traceability, and PDF417 where stacked linear codes are required by regulation.

Barcode print quality, verification standards and why they matter at scale

A barcode that fails to scan on the first pass is not just an inconvenience — at scale it becomes a measurable operational cost. A grocery distribution centre handling one million scans per day with a first-pass read rate of 99.99% still suffers 100 failed scans daily; at 99.9% that rises to 1,000 failures — each requiring manual intervention that slows throughput and introduces human error. The international standards that govern barcode print quality are ISO/IEC 15416 (for 1D linear barcodes) and ISO/IEC 15415 (for 2D matrix codes). Both grade a printed barcode on a letter scale from A (4.0) down through B, C, D to F (0), measuring multiple parameters independently: minimum reflectance difference (the contrast between the darkest bar and the lightest space), edge contrast (the sharpness of individual bar edges), modulation (consistency of bar width across the symbol), defects (voids, spots and ink spread within bars), and decodability (how close the printed symbol is to the theoretical ideal for its symbology). GS1 mandates a minimum grade of 1.5 (D) for retail barcodes, though major retailers including Walmart routinely require a minimum of 2.5 (C) or better. Medical device and pharmaceutical barcodes under FDA and ISO regulations typically require a minimum of 3.5 (B) or 4.0 (A).

The print quality factors most likely to push a barcode below the minimum grade are ink gain (ink spreading beyond the intended bar boundary, narrowing spaces), substrate reflectance (glossy varnish layers reduce the contrast ratio between bars and spaces, particularly under 660 nm red laser light), print resolution (standard office laser printers at 300 dpi can struggle to reproduce bars narrower than about 0.33 mm reliably — commercial label printers operating at 600–1,200 dpi are better suited for high-density codes), and quiet zone violations (the mandatory blank space on either side of a 1D barcode — 10× the minimum bar width for Code 128, 11× for UPC-A — is the most commonly omitted element in DIY labels). For 1D barcodes, ISO 15416 specifies that the minimum bar width should be at least 0.25 mm (0.0098 inches) for scanner reliability; for 2D DataMatrix cells laser-etched onto metal components, industrial imagers can read cells as small as 0.1 mm reliably, though 0.33 mm is the common minimum for camera-based scanners.

Barcode verification — distinct from merely scanning a barcode — requires a calibrated verifier device that measures all ISO parameters under controlled illumination at a defined aperture size (aperture diameter is specified per symbology and X-dimension). A verifier is not an ordinary scanner: an ordinary scanner reports success or failure and stops; a verifier measures the physical print quality across the full ISO parameter set and assigns a grade. For any high-volume label production run — pharmaceutical serialisation, retail shelf-ready packaging, logistics labels — running a verification check at the start and periodically during the print run is standard practice, as ink ribbon wear, printhead debris and substrate batch variation can all cause gradual quality drift that a simple scan-pass test will not catch until failures are already occurring downstream in a customer's warehouse.