FAQ on Printing Technology

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Fascimile printing

printing (publishing): Toward direct impression:

...photosensitive preparations and passed in front of a cathode-ray screen of a phototypesetter. The first experiment using this facsimile printing process was carried out in Japan in 1964 by the Mainichi shimbun, a Tokyo daily newspaper. The image of the newspaper page formed on the cathode-ray screen was transmitted by radio waves, as in television. It was reproduced using the...

Facsimile apparatus and printing method used by facsimile apparatus

Top of Form

Abstract: The invention provides a facsimile apparatus that includes: a receiving section that receives facsimile data; a print head that discharges ink from nozzles so as to print out an image; a cleaning unit that cleans the nozzles of the print head; and a controlling section that controls the operations of the print head and the cleaning unit. In such a configuration of the facsimile apparatus according to an aspect of the invention, the controlling section commands the print head to perform facsimile printing by means of the received facsimile data only after the execution of nozzle-cleaning operations, which are executed by the cleaning unit under the control of the controlling section, if it is judged on the basis of the print image resolution of the received facsimile data that the execution of the nozzle-cleaning operations is necessary. (end of abstract)

Bottom of Form

[Facsimile of first newspaper printing of The star spangled banner] / F. S. Key [print material]

[ Facsimile of first newspaper printing of The star spangled banner]

Title

[ Facsimile of first newspaper printing of The star spangled banner]

Author

[Key, F. S.]

Place of Publication/Creation

Baltimore [MD]

Date Issued

[1814] Sept 20

Publisher

Munroe & French

Physical Description

1 photostat of newspaper article

Notes

Published in the" Baltimore Patriot and Evening Advertiser."

Part of an assortment of uncatalogued clippings and photostats relating to the Star Spangled Banner, housed in the Music Division.

Last Updated: 10-23-2007

Display XML: MODS Bibliographic Data | METS Object Description

"What is a Facsimile? The History and Technique of the Facsimile"
by Manfred Kramer

(from Imagination, Almanach 1986-1993, Sammelheft. Copyright 1993; 2006)Today when one speaks of the Austrian book, of its special place and contribution to the history of the book, one cannot ignore its connection with an exceptional and modern book genre, the facsimile; here, interest, enthusiasm and fascination with the old book is united with fine printing and hand craftsmanship. This most modern invention is at the service of our ancient spiritual legacy, whose careful preservation has been deemed important and necessary throughout the centuries.

The basis of this development may be due to the abundance of ancient books housed not only in the great libraries of this country, but often in the architectonically fascinating libraries of many of its monasteries and foundations. With the Austrian National Library, the former Royal Court Library, or the collections in Melk, Göttweig, Kremsmünster, Klosterneuberg, Vorau, Admont or Zwettl—to mention a few—Austria is a true treasure house of the book, where its preservation and protection has constantly been a concern.

The first facsimile in the history of the book was a manuscript of Austrian provenance—the Goldene Bulle—reproduced in 1697 by the Frankfurt law historian Heinrich Günther Thülemeyer and Johann Friedrich Fleischer; based on King Wenceslaus' deluxe presentation manuscript, this copper plate reproduction reflects the means and possibilites available to the printer in the 17th century.

Although we can speak of this 1697 reproduction as possibly the first facsimile edition in the history of the book, in relation to our modern understanding of this genre, there were already elements and ideas of the facsimile in the history of Western printing. The desire to reproduce an accurate copy can be traced back further. From the very beginning of printing both the texts and images of the manuscript were emulated in the printed version. The manuscript exemplars were imitated and sympathized. This was true not only for decorations and illuminations but also for type styles. Especially striking examples are the block books (Blockbücher) which were printed entirely from wood blocks. Ligatures and abbreviations were used equally in print and codices. The fact that the unique manuscripts of scriptoriums and illuminators could find, through printing, unbelievable dissemination, was a sensational feat. In this regard it is amazing that manuscripts were distinctive even though their structure and form were restricted by typological content.

Naturally in the foreground here was not the phenomenon of the magnificent uniqueness of the exemplar, as in today's concept, but the desire to disseminate a self-contained body of knowledge.

A turning point occurred in the 17th century. The preservation of special codices was the first concern for reproduction. Around 1642 there was an attempt to reproduce the miniatures of the "Vergilius Vaticanus (Vat. lat. 3225)" through copper engravings. The Vergil manuscripts from late antiquity appear to be generally the earliest to have stimulated interest as facsimile candidates. So we possess an important piece of text from the Aeneis, thanks to the efforts to have a true reproduction of a single leave of "Vergilius Augusteus" (now lost) in Mabillon's De re diplomatica, which allows us to correctly order the fragment of the manuscript—presently in Berlin and the Vatican—as a component in the reconstruction of the original manuscript. Other early trials to make facsimiles of parts of a manuscript include the miniatures from the "Leges Palatinae" of James III of Mallorca in 1701 in the monumental work of Acta sanctorum.

The decisive advancement in the history of the book type we are addressing here occurred finally in the 19th century with the development of a new printing technique that took advantage of photographic methods to serve the antique book. The development of lithography as a printing process by the Prague printer Senefelder and the subsequent evolution of the printing process known as Lichtdruck (collotype) as the oldest of all facsimile techniques made it suddenly possible to introduce, in printing, photographic halftones (grey tones). The possibility of making facsimiles in the modern sense was born. Hand-made copies no longer would suffice to reproduce a page of a manuscript, but rather the direct application of an uncorrupted photographic image became the basis of the work of the printer. Without these older reproduction methods the most commonly used lithographic process for making facsimiles today, the "offset" process, would be unthinkable.

Kluge Tiere: The copyist of the "Bestiarum" imbued the stags with so much wisdom that, when injured, they ate the correct herbs to heal themselves. Modern behavioral researchers confirm that wild animals experiencing certain hardships indeed search out and feed on healing grasses or herbs.

Kluge Tiere

As a result of these developments during the second half of the 19th century Austria was not only the custodian of irretrievable sources, but a printing stronghold. The firms "Erste Österr. Lichtanstalt", the "Österr. Staatsdruckerei" and the "Kunstanstalt Max Jaffe" stood in the top rank regarding the preservation and protection of unique book treasures and earned rapid international reputation for their high quality and manuscript credentials. Austrian facsimile publishing experienced a true flourishing during the period between the two world wars, especially in respect to the latter two firms. Editions such as the "Wiener Genesis", the "Wiener Dioskurides" or the "Buch vom liebentbrannten Herzen" of René d'Anjou were printed in perfect form.

In the period after the second world war this tradition was seized in Graz by Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt Dr. Paul Struzl (ADEVA), which, at the same time, steered the genre in a fully new direction with the introduction of the "offset press" lithography process, which became the dominant method in the "facsimilization" of historical monuments. In the last thirty years Austria has become the country—thanks to the role of ADEVA—where the highest number of facsimile editions have appeared. This was possible not only through technical advancements but through a new publishing concept: from the very beginning and with each work the question of protecting the original from constant use was addressed. This meant that for the first time the essential qualities of a manuscript—or what those qualities seemed to be at that moment—should be "documented" (made into a facsimile), and completeness in the reproduction would be strived for. No detail of the original would be neglected, no empty pages omitted out of economic considerations, no library stamps removed, even if these details seemed to appear unimportant to the documentation. With the series "Codices Selecti" a form of scientific documentation was developed which became a model for all other facsimile publishers.

A further objective of the documentation of manuscripts was to go beyond national borders and to draw on the most important manuscripts and unique documents from all cultural circles. With "Codices Selecti" the book patrimony of the whole humankind would be documented, its written and illustrated texts should be published in outstanding reproductions, to make them understandable and useful. The concern of preservation is the integral part of this work.

Up to now more that 35 libraries and museums all over the world have contributed to the formation of more than 80 facsimile editions in the series "Codices Selecti." [translator's note: As of Jan. 2006 the series consists of 110 volumes.] In addition to many international libraries and institutions there is a special emphasis on manuscripts from the Austrian National Library, which houses one of the largest collections of manuscripts and incunables in the world. An outstanding facsimile published in 1965-70 is the "Wiener Dioscurides" which for the first time reproduces the original in its entirety.

Africa: According to ancient Ethiopian tradition the old Aksumite dynasty descended from King Solomon and Maheda, the Queen of Sheba. In the Christian epoch Nubia and Egypt were evangelized by the Copts of Egypt, of the legendary Kathedra of St. Mark's in Alexandria. The encounter of King Solomon and Queen Azeba is a popular motif in Ethiopian manuscripts.

Africa

A still greater and exciting project being prepared is the first facsimile edition of the oldest German Bible from a deluxe presentation manuscript, the so-called "Wenzelsbibel" dating from the period 1389-1400. The first six volumes of this unique document of German cultural history have already appeared in an accurate reproduction; two additional volumes must follow before scholars can fully appreciate this manuscript's beautiful pre-Luther translation, rich illuminations and fascinating symbolic world current at the end of the 14th century. Never before has such an important book as the Wenzelsbibel been accessible; the original, on account of its unwieldiness, has practically been unexplored. [translator's note: ADEVA's facsimile edition of Wenzelsbibel was completed in 1990 with the ninth and final volume.]

Naturally all this work is only possible and feasible if the term "facsimile" is clearly defined. The concept and definition of the facsimile as ADEVA has realized it for more than 30 years is also a concept that has been adopted by all the other younger publishers of facsimiles in the German-speaking sphere, namely in Austria, Germany and Switzerland—an amazing accomplishment.

This definition of a facsimile as it is construed today and, in general, acknowledged, encompasses the following elements:

A facsimile edition is the photo-mechanical reproduction of a unique, practically two-dimensional model; it eliminates as much as possible manual copy work, reflects to the highest degree the inner and outer aspects of the original, incorporates all possible technical means available, garantees the protection and preservation of the original, and is suitable for both scientific and artistic interests. A facsimile must act as a true surrogate of the original for research purposes and bibliophiles.

Thus, the essential criteria are: a facsimile is a reproduction of a unique source. In contrast to a reprint, a facsimile is also always a first edition of a manuscript. It should never reproduce only a portion of the manuscript or its decoration. Completeness is as indispensable as the original format is. Accuracy to the original color tones, as much as modern techniques allow, is obvious but the thoughtful publisher and printer will make an attempt to maintain other aspects as well, such as the fascicle layout of the manuscript and points that can be decisive for a detailed study and can serve as scientific proofs. It must be possible for a scholar to work from the facsimile without using the original, thus saving it from further hardships. The type of printing process is not included among these criteria, as it is possible today to produce a facsimile using a variety of printing techniques and methods.

If the offset printing process in its more refined form firmly established itself as the facsimile process, it is not only thanks to the pioneering work that ADEVA has performed over the last 30 years, but also because the technical possibilities of modern reproduction process could be employed in the most economical way. The facsimile edition of a manuscript becomes then only meaningful if it is accessible to the researcher, and that means acquirable as well.

The facsimile has captured a firm place in modern book publishing and the contents of the old book in its formal presence become interesting again through its new appearance. At any time now a collection can be assembled, which in its fullness and contents far surpasses the imagination of the greatest bibliophiles of the past.

We live in a society where we seek access to stored knowledge and the ability to transmit both our experiences and those of our forebearers to future generations. (translated by Eric Canepa)

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Fascimile printing

printing

William Caxton produced both the first printed book in English, Recuyell of the Historyes of Troy 1475, and also the first book to be printed in England, Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophers 1477.

A reconstruction of an early printing press. The invention of these presses in the late 15th century brought books to thousands of people. The press had movable print, which was laid in a form and inked. The press was then lowered onto the paper by winding down the huge screw.

The printing press invented by the German printer Johannes Gutenberg (c.1400–1468). He invented the technique of printing from moveable type, and is regarded as the originator of the first printed bible, which has come to be known as the Gutenberg Bible (c. 1455).

Reproduction of multiple copies of text or illustrative material on paper, as in books or newspapers, or on an increasing variety of materials; for example, on plastic containers or on fabrics. The first printing used woodblocks, followed by carved wood type or moulded metal type and hand-operated presses. Modern printing is effected by electronically controlled machinery. Current printing processes include electronic phototypesetting with offset printing, and gravure print.

Origins

In China the art of printing from a single wooden block was known by the 6th century AD, and movable type was being used by the 11th century. In Europe printing was unknown for another three centuries, and it was only in the 15th century that movable type was reinvented, traditionally by Johannes Gutenberg in Germany. From there printing spread to Italy, France, and England, where it was introduced by William Caxton.

Steam power, linotype, and monotype

There was no further substantial advance until, in the 19th century, steam power replaced hand-operation of printing presses, making possible long ‘runs’. Hand-composition of type, each tiny metal letter being taken from the case and placed individually in the narrow stick that carried one line of text, was replaced by machines operated by a keyboard. Linotype, a hot-metal process that produced a line of type in a solid slug, was invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1886, and commonly used in newspapers, magazines, and books until the 1980s. The Monotype, used in bookwork was invented by Tolbert Lanston (1844–1913) in the USA in 1889. It produced a series of individual characters, which could be hand-corrected.

Important as these developments were, they represented no fundamental change but simply a faster method of carrying out the same basic typesetting operations. The actual printing process still involved pressing the inked type on to paper by letterpress.

20th-century developments

In the 1960s, letterpress began to face increasing competition from offset printing, a method that prints from an inked flat surface, and from the gravure method (used for high-circulation magazines), which uses recessed plates. The introduction of electronic phototypesetting machines, also in the 1960s, allowed the entire process of setting and correction to be done in the same way that a typist operates, thus eliminating the hot-metal composing room, with its hazardous fumes, lead scraps, and noise, and leaving only the making of plates and the running of the presses to be done traditionally.

By the 1970s some final steps were taken to plateless printing, using various processes, such as a computer-controlled laser beam, or continuous jets of ink acoustically broken up into tiny equal-sized drops, which are electrostatically charged under computer control. Pictures can be fed into computer typesetting systems by optical scanners.

Fabric printing

A wide range of different techniques are used in fabric printing, including block printing, silk-screen printing, and roller printing. Other techniques are mono printing, card printing, and etching. In mono printing, ink or paint is applied freehand to the surface of a flat plate or piece of Perspex. This is then pressed on to a piece of fabric, transferring the design to the surface. In card printing, the design is cut into the surface of the card which is then given a thin coat of varnish. When the varnish is dry, printing ink is applied to the card, which is placed on the fabric. The card and fabric are then run through a printing press or subjected to very firm pressure, which transfers the ink to the fabric. The process of etching involves a design being scratched on the surface of an etching plate, before applying printing ink, placing the plate on top of fabric, and running through a printing press. Once dry, watercolours, inks, or thin fabric paint can be used to colour the design, if required. Computers can also be used in fabric printing. A design or picture can be prepared on screen, and an inkjet printer and specially-made paper used to prepare a transfer that can be ironed on to fabric.

Bar - Coding

A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data, which shows certain data on certain products. Originally, barcodes represented data in the widths (lines) and the spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or 1D (1 dimensional) barcodes or symbologies. They also come in patterns of squares, dots, hexagons and other geometric patterns within images termed 2D (2 dimensional) matrix codes or symbologies. Although 2D systems use symbols other than bars, they are generally referred to as barcodes as well. Barcodes can be read by optical scanners called barcode readers, or scanned from an image by special software.

The first use of barcodes was to label railroad cars, but they were not commercially successful until they were used to automate supermarket checkout systems, a task in which they have become almost universal. Their use has spread to many other roles as well, tasks that are generically referred to asAuto ID Data Capture (AIDC). Other systems are attempting to make inroads in the AIDC market, but the simplicity, universality and low cost of barcodes has limited the role of these other systems. It costs 0.5¢ (U.S.) to implement a barcode, while passive RFID still costs about 7¢ to 30¢ per tag.^[1]

Contents

[hide]

· 1 History

o 1.1 Collins at Sylvania

o 1.2 Computer Identics

o 1.3 UPC

· 2 Industrial adoption

· 3 Use

· 4 Symbologies

o 4.1 Scanners (barcode readers)

o 4.2 Verifier (Pika inspection)

· 5 Benefits

· 6 Types of barcodes

o 6.1 Linear barcodes

o 6.2 Matrix (2D) barcodes

· 7 See also

History

In 1948 Bernard Silver (1924–63), a graduate student at Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia, USA overheard the president of a local food chain asking one of the deans to research a system to automatically read product information during checkout. Silver told his friend Norman Joseph Woodland (1921-) about the request, and they started working on a variety of systems. Their first working system used ultraviolet ink, but this proved to fade and was fairly expensive.^[2]

Convinced that the system was workable with further development, Woodland quit his position at Drexel, moved into his father's apartment in Florida, and continued working on the system. His next inspiration came from Morse code, and he formed his first barcode from sand on the beach when "I just extended the dots and dashes downwards and made narrow lines and wide lines out of them."^[2] To read them, he adapted technology from optical soundtracks in movies, using a 500-watt light bulb shining through the paper onto an RCA935 photomultiplier tube (from amovie projector) on the far side. He later decided that the system would work better if it were printed as a circle instead of a line, allowing it to be scanned in any direction.

On 20 October 1949 Woodland and Silver filed a patent application for "Classifying Apparatus and Method", in which they described both the linear and bullseye printing patterns, as well as the mechanical and electronic systems needed to read the code. The patent was issued on 7 October 1952 as US Patent 2,612,994, google.com. In 1951, Woodland moved to IBM and continually tried to interest IBM in developing the system. The company eventually commissioned a report on the idea, which concluded that it was both feasible and interesting, but that processing the resulting information would require equipment that was some time off in the future.

In 1952 Philco purchased their patent, and then sold it to RCA the same year. In 1963 Silver died in a car accident.

Collins at Sylvania

During his time as an undergraduate, David Collins worked at the Pennsylvania Railroad and became aware of the need to automatically identifytrain cars. Immediately after receiving his master's degree from MIT in 1959, he started work at Sylvania and began addressing the problem. He developed a system using blue and yellow reflective stripes attached to the side of the cars, encoding a six-digit company identifier and a four-digit car number. Light reflected off the stripes was fed into one of two photomultipliers, filtered for blue or yellow.^{[citation needed]}

The Boston and Maine Railroad tested the system on their gravel cars in 1961. The tests continued until 1967, when the Association of American Railroads (AAR) selected it as a standard across the entire North American fleet. The installations began on October 10, 1967. However, theeconomic downturn and rash of bankruptcies in the industry in the early 1970s greatly slowed the rollout, and it wasn't until 1974 that 95% of the fleet was labeled. To add to its woes, the system was found to be easily fooled by dirt in certain applications, and the accuracy was greatly affected. The AAR abandoned the system in the late 1970s, and it was not until the mid-1980s that they introduced a similar system, this time based on radio tags.^{[citation needed]}

The railway project had proven to be a bust, but a toll bridge in New Jersey requested that a similar system be developed so that it could quickly scan for cars that had paid for a monthly pass. Then the U.S. Post Office requested the development of a system to keep track of the trucks entering and leaving their facilities. These applications required special retroreflective labels. Finally, Kal Kan asked the Sylvania team to develop a simpler (and cheaper) version which they could put on cases of pet food for inventory control. This, in turn, led to the grocery industry's interest.^{[citation needed]}

Computer Identics

In 1967, with the railway system maturing, Collins went to management looking for funding for a project to develop a black and white version of the code for other industries. They declined, saying that the railway project was large enough and they saw no need to branch out so quickly.

Collins then quit Sylvania and formed Computer Identics. Computer Identics started working with helium-neon lasers in place of light bulbs, scanning with a mirror to locate the barcode anywhere up to several feet in front of the scanner. This made the entire process much simpler and more reliable, as well as allowing it to deal with ripped codes by reading the intact portions.

Computer Identics installed their first two systems in early 1969, one at a General Motors factory in Pontiac, Michigan, and another at a distribution center at the General Trading Company in Carlstadt, New Jersey.^{[citation needed]} The General Motors system was used to identify caraxles in inventory among the 18 models produced at the factory.

UPC

Main article: Universal Product Code

In 1966 the National Association of Food Chains (NAFC) held a meeting where they discussed the idea of using automated checkout systems.RCA, having purchased rights to the original Woodland patent, had attended the meeting and set up an internal project to develop a system based on the bullseye code. The Kroger grocery chain volunteered to test it.

In mid-1970, the NAFC established the U.S. Supermarket Ad Hoc Committee on a Uniform Grocery Product Code, which set guidelines for barcode development and created a symbol selection subcommittee to help standardize the approach. In cooperation with consulting firm McKinsey & Co., they developed a standardized 11-digit code to identify any product. The committee then sent out a contract tender to develop abarcode system to print and read the code. The request went to Singer, National Cash Register (NCR), Litton Industries, RCA, Pitney-Bowes, IBM and many others.^[3] A wide variety of barcode approaches were studied, including linear codes, RCA's bullseye concentric circle code, systems with starburst patterns, and even odder varieties.

In the spring of 1971 RCA demonstrated their bullseye code at another industry meeting, and IBM executives at the meeting noticed the crowds at the RCA booth, immediately setting out to develop their own system. IBM marketing specialist Alec Jablonover remembered that the company still employed the system's inventor Woodland, and he was set up in new facilities in North Carolina to lead the development.

In July 1972 RCA began an eighteen-month test of their system in a Kroger store in Cincinnati. Barcodes were printed on small pieces of adhesive paper, and attached by hand by store employees when they were adding price tags. The code proved to have a serious problem. During printing, presses sometimes smear ink in the direction the paper is running, rendering the code unreadable in most orientations. A linear code, like the one being developed by Woodland at IBM, however, was printed in the direction of the stripes, so extra ink simply makes the code "taller" while remaining readable, and on April 3, 1973 the IBM UPC code was selected by NAFC as their standard. IBM had designed five versions of the UPC symbology for future industry requirements: UPC A, B, C, D, and E.^[4]

NCR installed a testbed system at Marsh's Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, USA near the factory that was producing the equipment. On June 26, 1974, Clyde Dawson pulled a 10-pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum out of his basket and it was scanned by Sharon Buchanan at 8:01 am. The pack of gum and the receipt are now on display in the Smithsonian Institution. It was the first commercial appearance of the UPC.^[5]

Economic studies conducted for the grocery industry committee projected over $40 million in savings to the industry from scanning by the mid-1970s. Those numbers were not achieved in that time frame and there were those who predicted the demise of barcode scanning. The usefulness of the barcode required the adoption of expensive scanners by a critical mass of retailers while manufacturers simultaneously adopted barcode labels. Neither wanted to move first and results weren't promising for the first couple of years, with Business Week proclaiming "The Supermarket Scanner That Failed."^[5]

For years many had worked to computerize the grocery industry. In 1971 IBM had assembled a team for an intensive planning session, day after day, 12 to 18 hours a day, to hash out how the whole system might operate and to schedule a rollout plan. By 1973 they were meeting with grocery manufacturers to introduce the symbol that would need to be printed on all of their products. There were no cost savings for a grocery to use it unless at least 70% of the grocery's products had the barcode printed on the product by the manufacturer. IBM was projecting that 75% would be in 1975. Even though that was achieved, there still were scanning machines in fewer than 200 grocery stores by 1977.^[6]

Experience with barcode scanning in those stores revealed benefits previously unappreciated. The detailed sales information acquired by the new systems allowed far better servicing of customer needs. This was reflected in the fact that about 5 weeks after installing barcode scanners, sales in grocery stores typically started climbing and eventually leveled off at a 10-12% increase in sales that never dropped off. There also was a 1% to 2% decrease in operating cost for the stores that enabled them to lower prices in order to increase market share. It was shown in the field that the return on investment for a barcode scanner was 41.5%. By 1980 the technology was being adopted by 8000 stores per year.^[6]

The global public launch of the barcode was greeted with minor skepticism from conspiracy theorists, who considered barcodes to be an intrusive surveillance technology, and from some Christians who thought the codes hid the number 666, representing the antichrist. Television host Phil Donahue described barcodes as a "corporate plot against consumers".^[7]

Industrial adoption

In 1981 the United States Department of Defense adopted the use of Code 39 for marking all products sold to the United States military. This system, LOGMARS, is still used by DoD and is widely viewed as the catalyst for widespread adoption of barcoding in industrial applications.^[8]

Use

Barcodes—especially the UPC—have slowly become an essential^{[citation needed]} part of modern civilization. Their use is widespread, and the technology behind barcodes is constantly improving. Some modern applications of barcodes include:

§ Almost every item purchased from a grocery store, department store, and mass merchandiser has a UPC barcode on it. This greatly helps in keeping track of a large number of items in a store and also reduces instances of shoplifting involving price tag swapping, although shoplifters can now print their own barcodes. Since the adoption of barcodes, both consumers and retailers have benefited from the savings generated.

§ Barcodes are widely used in shop floor control applications software where employees can scan work orders and enter the time spent on a job.^[9]

§ Retail chain membership cards (issued mostly by grocery stores and specialty "big box" retail stores such as sporting equipment, office supply, or pet stores) use bar codes to uniquely identify a consumer. Retailers benefit by being able to offer customized marketing and greater understanding of individual consumer shopping patterns. Shoppers typically get special offers at the point of sale (coupons, product discounts) or special marketing offers through the address or e-mail address provided at registration.

Example of barcode on a patient identification wristband.

§ When used on patient identification, barcodes permit clinical staff to instantly access a wealth of vital patient data, including medical history, allergy warnings and other potentially life-saving medical information.

§ Document Management tools often allow for barcoded sheets to facilitate the separation andindexing of documents that have been imaged in batch scanning applications.

§ The tracking of item movement, including rental cars, airline luggage, nuclear waste, mail and parcels.

§ Since 2005, airlines use an IATA-standard 2D barcode on boarding passes (BCBP), and since 2008 2D barcodes sent to mobile phones enable electronic boarding passes.^[10]

§ Recently, researchers have placed tiny barcodes on individual bees to track the insects' mating habits.

§ Entertainment event tickets can have barcodes that need to be validated before allowing the holder to enter sports arenas, cinemas, theatres, fairgrounds, transportation etc. This can allow the proprietor to identify duplicate or fraudulent tickets more easily.

§ Used on automobiles, can be located on front or back.

§ Joined with in-motion checkweighers to identify the item being weighed in a conveyor line for data collection

§ Some 2D barcodes embed a hyperlink to a web page. A capable cellphone might be used to read the barcode and browse the linked website.

§ In the 1970s and 1980s, software source code was occasionally encoded in a barcode and printed on paper. Cauzin Softstrip and Paperbyte^[11]are barcode symbologies specifically designed for this application.

§ The 1991 Barcode Battler computer game system, which used any standard barcode to generate combat statistics.

§ 1992, Veterans Health Administration developed Bar Code Medication Administration system (BCMA).

§ At the turn of the century, many artists started using barcodes in art, such as Scott Blake's Barcode Jesus.

Symbologies

The mapping between messages and barcodes is called a symbology. The specification of a symbology includes the encoding of the single digits/characters of the message as well as the start and stop markers into bars and space, the size of the quiet zone required to be before and after the barcode as well as the computation of a checksum.

Linear symbologies can be classified mainly by two properties:

§ Continuous vs. discrete: Characters in continuous symbologies usually abut, with one character ending with a space and the next beginning with a bar, or vice versa. Characters in discrete symbologies begin and end with bars; the intercharacter space is ignored, as long as it is not wide enough to look like the code ends.

§ Two-width vs. many-width: Bars and spaces in two-width symbologies are wide or narrow; how wide a wide bar is exactly has no significance as long as the symbology requirements for wide bars are adhered to (usually two to three times wider than a narrow bar). Bars and spaces in many-width symbologies are all multiples of a basic width called the module; most such codes use four widths of 1, 2, 3 and 4 modules.

Some symbologies use interleaving. The first character is encoded using black bars of varying width. The second character is then encoded, by varying the width of the white spaces between these bars. Thus characters are encoded in pairs over the same section of the barcode. Interleaved 2 of 5 is an example of this.

Stacked symbologies consist of a given linear symbology repeated vertically in multiple.

There is a large variety of 2D symbologies. The most common are matrix codes, which feature square or dot-shaped modules arranged on a grid pattern. 2-D symbologies also come in a variety of other visual formats. Aside from circular patterns, there are several 2-D symbologies which employ steganography by hiding an array of different-sized or -shaped modules within a user-specified image (for example, DataGlyphs).

Linear symbologies are optimized to be read by a laser scanner, which sweeps a beam of light across the barcode in a straight line, reading aslice of the barcode light-dark patterns. In the 1990s development of CCD imagers to read barcodes was pioneered by Welch Allyn. Imaging does not require moving parts, like a laser scanner does. In 2007, linear imaging was surpassing laser scanning as the preferred scan engine for its performance and durability.

Stacked symbologies are also optimized for laser scanning, with the laser making multiple passes across the barcode.

2-D symbologies cannot be read by a laser as there is typically no sweep pattern that can encompass the entire symbol. They must be scanned by an image-based scanner employing a charge coupled device (CCD) or other digital camera sensor technology.

Scanners (barcode readers)

Main article: Barcode reader

The earliest, and still the cheapest, barcode scanners are built from a fixed light and a single photosensor that is manually "scrubbed" across the barcode.

Barcode scanners can be classified into three categories based on their connection to the computer. The older type is the RS-232 barcode scanner. This type requires special programming for transferring the input data to the application program. Another type connects between a computer and its PS/2 or AT keyboard by the use of an adaptor cable. The third type is the USB barcode scanner, which is a more modern and more easily installed device than the RS-232 scanner. Like the keyboard interface scanner, this has the advantage that it does not need any code or program for transferring input data to the application program; when you scan the barcode its data is sent to the computer as if it had been typed on the keyboard.

Verifier (Pika inspection)

Barcode verifiers are primarily used by businesses that print barcodes, but any trading partner in the supply chain could test barcode quality. It is important to "grade" a barcode to ensure that any scanner in the supply chain can read the barcode. Retailers levy large fines and penalties for non-compliant barcodes.

Barcode verifiers work in a way similar to a scanner but instead of simply decoding a barcode, a verifier performs a series of eight tests. Each test is given a grade from 0.0 to 4.0 (F to A) and the lowest of any of the tests is the scan grade. For most applications a 2.5 (C) grade is the minimum acceptable grade.

Barcode verifier standards:

§ Barcode verifiers should comply with the ISO 15426-1 (linear barcode verifier compliance standard) or ISO 15426-2 (2D barcode verifier compliance standard)

§ The current international barcode quality specification is ISO/IEC 15416 (linear barcodes) and ISO/IEC 15415 (2D barcodes)

§ The European Standard EN 1635 has been withdrawn and replaced by ISO/IEC 15416

§ The original U.S. barcode quality specification was ANSI X3.182. UPC Codes used in the US ANSI/UCC5.

Barcode verifier manufacturers (partial list):

§ Axicon (linear, 2D) Tel: +44 (0)1869351155

§ Auto ID Solutions (2D)

§ LVS(R)Inc (linear, 2D)

§ Intermec (linear, 2D)

§ Motorola Symbol (linear, 2D)

§ Axicon (linear, 2D)

§ Code Corporation (linear, 2D)

§ IFM Efector (linear, 2D, UID)

§ Cognex Corporation (2D, UID)

§ Honeywell (earlier known as Metrologic and HHP) (linear, 2D)

§ REA Elektronik GmbH (linear)

§ RJS/Printronix (linear)

§ Siemens (linear, 2D, UID)

§ Microscan (linear, 2D, UID)

§ Stratix (linear)

§ Webscan (linear, 2D)

§ Datalogic (linear, stacked, 2D, direct part marked)

§ Compar AG vision systems & robotics (2D, UID)

Barcode verifier test code manufacturers:

§ Applied Image Inc. (Rochester, NY)

Benefits

In point-of-sale management, the use of barcodes can provide very detailed up-to-date information on key aspects of the business, enabling decisions to be made much more quickly and with more confidence. For example:

§ Fast-selling items can be identified quickly and automatically reordered to meet consumer demand,

§ Slow-selling items can be identified, preventing a build-up of unwanted stock,

§ The effects of repositioning a given product within a store can be monitored, allowing fast-moving more profitable items to occupy the best space,

§ Historical data can be used to predict seasonal fluctuations very accurately.

§ Items may be repriced on the shelf to reflect both sale prices and price increases.

§ This technology also enables the profiling of individual consumers, typically through a voluntary registration of discount cards. While pitched as a benefit to the consumer, this practice is considered to be potentially dangerous by privacy advocates.

Besides sales and inventory tracking, barcodes are very useful in shipping/receiving/tracking.

§ When a manufacturer packs a box with any given item, a Unique Identifying Number (UID) can be assigned to the box.

§ A relational database can be created to relate the UID to relevant information about the box; such as order number, items packed, qty packed, final destination, etc.

§ The information can be transmitted through a communication system such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) so the retailer has the information about a shipment before it arrives.

§ Shipments that are sent to a Distribution Center (DC) are tracked before being forwarded to the final destination. When the shipment gets to the final destination, the UID gets scanned, so the store knows where the order came from, what's inside the box, and how much to pay the manufacturer.

The reason barcodes are business-friendly is that the scanners are relatively low cost and extremely accurate compared to key-entry, with only about 1 substitution error in 15,000 to 36 trillion characters entered.^[12] The exact error rate depends on the type of barcode.

Types of barcodes

Linear barcodes

Symbology	Continuous or discrete	Bar widths	Uses
U.P.C.	Continuous	Many	Worldwide retail, GS1 approved
Codabar	Discrete	Two	Old format used in libraries, blood banks, airbills
Code 25 – Non-interleaved 2 of 5	Continuous	Two	Industrial (NO)
Code 25 – Interleaved 2 of 5	Continuous	Two	Wholesale, Libraries (NO)
Code 39	Discrete	Two	Various
Code 93	Continuous	Many	Various
Code 128	Continuous	Many	Various
Code 128A	Continuous	Many	Various
Code 128B	Continuous	Many	Various
Code 128C	Continuous	Many	Various
Code 11	Discrete	Two	Telephones
CPC Binary	Discrete	Two	Post office
DUN 14	Continuous	Many	Various
EAN 2	Continuous	Many	Addon code (Magazines), GS1 approved
EAN 5	Continuous	Many	Addon code (Books), GS1 approved
EAN 8, EAN 13	Continuous	Many	Worldwide retail, GS1 approved
Facing Identification Mark	Continuous	One	USPS business reply mail
GS1-128 (formerly known as UCC/EAN-128), incorrectly referenced as EAN 128 and UCC 128	Continuous	Many	Various, GS1 approved
GS1 DataBar formerly Reduced Space Symbology (RSS)	Continuous	Many	Various, GS1 approved
HIBC (HIBCC Bar Code Standard)			^[13]
ITF-14	Continuous	Many	Non-retail packaging levels, GS1 approved
Latent image barcode	Neither	Tall/short	Color print film
Pharmacode	Neither	Two	Pharmaceutical Packaging
Plessey	Continuous	Two	Catalogs, store shelves, inventory
PLANET	Continuous	Tall/short	United States Postal Service
POSTNET	Continuous	Tall/short	United States Postal Service
Intelligent Mail Barcode	Continuous	Tall/short	United States Postal Service, replaces both POSTNET and PLANET symbols (Previously known as OneCode)
MSI	Continuous	Two	Used for warehouse shelves and inventory
PostBar	Discrete	Many	Canadian Post office
RM4SCC / KIX	Continuous	Tall/short	Royal Mail / Royal TPG Post
JAN	Continuous	Many	Used in Japan, similar and compatible with EAN-13
Telepen	Continuous	Two	Libraries, etc (UK)

Matrix (2D) barcodes

A matrix code, also known as a 2D barcode or simply a 2D code, is a two-dimensional way of representing information. It is similar to a linear (1-dimensional) barcode, but has more data representation capability.

Symbology	Notes
3-DI	Developed by Lynn Ltd.
ArrayTag	From ArrayTech Systems.
Aztec Code	Designed by Andrew Longacre at Welch Allyn (now Hand Held Products). Public domain.
Small Aztec Code	Space-saving version of Aztec code.
Chromatic Alphabet^[14]	an artistic proposal by C. C. Elian; divides the visible spectrum into 26 different wavelengths - hues.
Chromocode	uses black, white, and 4 saturated colors.^[15]
Codablock	Stacked 1D barcodes.
Code 1	Public domain.
Code 16K	Based on 1D Code 128.
Code 49	Stacked 1D barcodes from Intermec Corp.
ColorCode	ColorZip^[16] developed colour barcodes that can be read by camera phones from TV screens; mainly used in Korea.^[17]
Compact Matrix Code	From Syscan Group, Inc.
CP Code	From CP Tron, Inc.
CyberCode	From Sony.
d-touch	readable when printed on deformable gloves and stretched and distorted^[18]
DataGlyphs	From Palo Alto Research Center (also known as Xerox PARC).^[19]
Datamatrix	From RVSI Acuity CiMatrix/Siemens. Public domain. Increasingly used throughout the United States.
Datastrip Code	From Datastrip, Inc.
Dot Code A	Designed for the unique identification of items.
EZcode	Designed for decoding by cameraphones.^[20]
Grid Matrix Code	From Syscan Group, Inc.
High Capacity Color Barcode	Developed by Microsoft; licensed by ISAN-IA.
HueCode	From Robot Design Associates. Uses greyscale or colour.^[21]
INTACTA.CODE	From INTACTA Technologies, Inc.
InterCode	From Iconlab, Inc. The standard 2D barcode in South Korea. All 3 South Korean mobile carriers put the scanner program of this code into their handsets to access mobile internet, as a default embedded program.
MaxiCode	Used by United Parcel Service. Now Public Domain
mCode	Developed by Nextcode Corporation specifically for camera phone scanning applications. Designed to enable advanced cell mobile applications with standard camera phones.
MiniCode	From Omniplanar, Inc.
Micro PDF417	Facilitates codes too small to be used in PDF417.
MMCC	Designed to disseminate high capacity mobile phone content via existing colour print and electronic media, without the need for network connectivity
Nintendo e-Reader#Dot code	Developed by Olympus Corporation to store songs, images, and mini-games for Game Boy Advance on Pokémon trading cards.
Optar	Developed by Twibright Labs and published as free software. Aims at maximum data storage density, for storing data on paper. 200kB per A4 page with laser printer.
PaperDisk	High density code, used both for data heavy applications (10K – 1 MB) and camera phones (50+ bits). Developed and patented by Cobblestone Software.^[22]
PDF417	Originated by Symbol Technologies. Public Domain.
PDMark	Developer by Ardaco.
QR Code	Initially developed, patented and owned by Toyota subsidiary Denso Wave for car parts management; now public domain. Can encode Japanese Kanji and Kana characters, music, images, URLs, emails. De facto standard for Japanese cell phones. Also used with BlackBerry Messenger to pickup contacts rather than using a PIN code.
QuickMark Code	From SimpleAct Inc.^[23]
Semacode	A Data Matrix code used to encode URLs for applications using cellular phones with cameras.
SmartCode	From InfoImaging Technologies.
Snowflake Code	From Marconi Data Systems, Inc.
ShotCode	Circular barcodes for camera phones by OP3. Originally from High Energy Magic Ltd in name Spotcode. Before that probably known as TRIPCode.
SPARQCode	QR Code encoding standard from MSKYNET, Inc.
SuperCode	Public domain.
Trillcode	From Lark Computers. Designed to work with mobile devices camera or webcam PC. Can encode a variety of "actions".
UltraCode	Black-and-white & colour versions. Public domain. Invented by Jeffrey Kaufman and Clive Hohberger.
UnisCode	also called "Beijing U Code"; a colour 2D barcode developed by Chinese company UNIS
VeriCode,VSCode	From Veritec, Inc.
WaterCode	High-density 2D Barcode(440 Bytes/cm²) From MarkAny Inc.

Example images

First, Second and Third Generation Barcodes

GTIN-12 number encoded in UPC-A barcode symbol. First and last digit are always placed outside the symbol to indicate Quiet Zones that are necessary for barcode scanners to work properly

EAN-13 (GTIN-13) number encoded in EAN-13 barcode symbol. First digit is always placed outside the symbol, additionally right quiet zone indicator (>) is used to indicate Quiet Zones that are necessary for barcode scanners to work properly

"Wikipedia" encoded inCode 93

'Wikipedia" encoded inCode 128

PDF417 sample

Semacode of the URL for Wikipedia's article onSemacode

Lorem ipsum boilerplate text as four segmentDataMatrix 2D

"This is an example Aztec symbol for Wikipedia" encoded in Aztec Code

Text 'EZcode'

High Capacity Color Barcode of the URL for Wikipedia's article on High Capacity Color Barcode

"Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia" in several languages encoded inDataGlyphs

Two different 2D barcodes used in film: Dolby Digitalbetween the sprocket holes with the "Double-D" logo in the middle, andSony Dynamic Digital Sound in the blue area to the left of the sprocket holes

The QR Code for the Wikipedia URL. "Quick Response", the most popular 2D barcode in Japan is promoted by Google. It is open in that the specification is disclosed and the patentis not exercised.^[24]