What is the Difference between
Bar Code Software and Label Software?
(For information about BarTender, the world's leading software for designing and
printing labels, barcodes and RFID tags, please
click here.)
Whether you spell it barcode, bar code, or bar-code, the right software for you
likely depends as much on how you want to print your bar codes as it does on the
type of bar codes that you need to print. If you are looking to place a pre-printed
UPC or EAN-13 bar code on a retail point of sale product (for example, as you might
see on a box of cereal), then all you need is software that can generate bar codes
for export into your other pre-press layout design software.
In contrast, "on demand" applications tend to use bar codes other than UPC and EAN-13,
including many of those listed below. And, rather than
being imported into pre-press artwork, these bar codes are usually printed as needed
on labels. What’s more, these labels often contain much more than just the bar code.
In addition to the "human readable" version of the bar code data (often, but not
always, appearing underneath the bar code), there can be a substantial quantity
of text-based information. There may even be a picture of a part, or other graphics.
(That's why some industrial labels are so large.)
Just because software can print labels doesn't mean that it can print labels with
bar codes. For example, the simple label software you might buy to print addresses
to mail your household bills or ship your company newsletter just isn't going to
support the variety of advanced bar codes and data integration required by industrial
labeling applications.
Fortunately, our BarTender label software can do it all. It comes with out-of-the-box
support more than 100 bar code standards, just about any size text and text style,
as large or small a label as your printer can handle, and it can even encode RFID
tags. And, if all you need is to export a bar code into your pre-press artwork,
BarTender can do that too!
Please click here for more information
about BarTender.
Overview of Bar Code Standards
Among the numerous families of bar code standards supported by BarTender are:
- Aztec Code
- Codabar
- Code 39
- Code 93
- Code 128
- Data Matrix
- DUN-14
- GS1 Composite
- GS1 DataBar
- GS1 DataMatrix
- GS1-128
- HIBC
- Interleaved 2-of-5
- ISBT 128
- ITF-14
- PDF417 and MicroPDF417
- Postal and Shipping, including UPS, USPS, Maxicode, KIX Code, Japanese Post, Candian
Customs, and Australia Post Coupons, including EAN-13 '99' and North American Coupon
- QR Code and Micro QR Code
- Telepen
- TLC
- Trioptic
- UPC-A, UPC-E, EAN-13, EAN-8, JAN-13, JAN-8
