Silverlight Barcode Overview

RadBarcode is a set of components that can be used to create, show and read barcodes. You can generate and visualize barcodes in a machine-readable format via the RadBarcode controls by providing numeric or character data. Additionally, you can read barcodes using the RadBarcodeReader component.

RadBarcodeSymbology Specifications

Barcode Description
Codabar (aka Ames Code/USD-4/NW-7/2 of 7 Code): Used in libraries and blood banks
Code 11 (USD-8): Used to identify telecommunications equipment
Code 25 Standard Used in airline ticket marking, photofinishing
Code 25 Interleaved Used in warehouse, industrial applications
Code 39 (aka USD-3, 3 of 9): U.S. Government and military use, required for DoD applications
Code 39 Extended (aka USD-3, 3 of 9): U.S. Government and military use, required for DoD applications, supports full ASCII
Code 93 (aka USS-93): Compressed form of Code 39
Code 93 Extended (aka USS-93): Compressed form of Code 39, supports full ASCII
Code 128 Very dense code, used extensively worldwide
Code 128 A Subset of Code 128 * more info in 1D Barcodes
Code 128 B Subset of Code 128 * more info in 1D Barcodes
Code 128 C Subset of Code 128 * more info in 1D Barcodes
MSI Variation of Plessey code, with similar applications
EAN 8 Short version of EAN-13, 8 characters
EAN 13 Used with consumer products internationally, 13 characters
Intelligent Mail Used by U.S. Post Office as successor of POSTNET and PLANET barcodes.
PLANET Printed by U.S. Post Office on envelopes. Predecessor of Intelligent Mail barcode.
Postnet Printed by U.S. Post Office on envelopes
UPC A Used with consumer products in U.S., 12 characters
UPC E Short version of UPC symbol, 6 characters
UPC Supplement 2 Used to indicate magazines and newspaper issue numbers
UPC Supplement 5 Used to mark suggested retail price of books

Additional information on Code128

  1. Code128A, Code128B and Code128C represent the A, B and C subsets of the Code128 symbology. Code128 uses an intelligent algorithm that picks automatically the appropriate subset according to the input value, and might switch between these subsets in the middle of a BarCode in order to produce a shorter generated sequence. For example, if you have the input string “ABCD1234”, the “ABCD” part of the string will be encoded using the A subset, while the “1234” part will be encoded with the C subset, because Code128C uses a double-density code for numerical values, thus producing a shorter BarCode as a result. If you want to disable this behavior you can specify explicitly one of the subsets: Code128A, Code128B or Code128C to the Symbology property of the BarCode report item.

  2. Code128 can represent both ASCII characters and non-ASCII control characters. Normally the BarCode report item inserts automatically the appropriate control characters in order to conform to the Code128 specification. However certain applications might require manual insertion of certain control characters, such as the functional characters: FNC1-FNC4. For this purpose the BarCode report item assigns special Unicode values to these control characters outside the normal 0-127 ASCII code range. The following table lists all Code128 control characters and their corresponding Unicode values:

Code 128 Control Characters

Control Character Hexadecimal Decimal
Code F4 244
Code B F5 245
Code C F6 246
FNC1 F7 247
FNC2 F8 248
FNC3 F9 249
FNC4 FA 250
Shift FB 251
Start A FC 252
Start B FD 253
Start C FE 254
Stop FF 255

Additional information on EAN128

EAN128 is a special case of Code128. The only difference between EAN128 and Code 128 is that EAN128 inserts the FNC1 control character at the beginning of the BarCode in order to conform to the EAN128 specification. If you have a multi-part EAN128 BarCode which requires the FNC1 control character as a delimiter between the different parts, you should insert it manually:

RadBarcodeQR

The QRCode represents a square matrix, filled with black and white modules. There are four modes available in the control, namely:

  • Numeric data (digits 0 - 9)
  • Alphanumeric data (digits 0 - 9; upper case letters A-Z; nine other characters: space, $ % * + - . / : )
  • 8-bit byte data (JIS 8-bit character set (Latin and Kana) in accordance with JIS X 0201)
  • Kanji characters (Shift JIS character set in accordance with JIS X 0208 Annex 1 Shift Coded Representation)
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