Which barcode type do you need?
| You want to… | Use |
|---|---|
| Sell a product in shops or on Amazon (outside North America) | EAN-13, with a number from GS1 |
| Sell a product in the US or Canada | UPC-A, with a number from GS1 US |
| Label stock, assets or parcels in your own system | Code 128 |
| Mark outer shipping cartons for a retailer | ITF-14 |
| Match an existing older system | Code 39 or Codabar, whichever it already uses |
If none of these is required, Code 128 is the safe default: every scanner reads it, and it holds letters as well as numbers.
Retail barcodes: the number matters more than the image
Drawing an EAN or UPC barcode is the easy part. For selling through retailers, the number itself must be licensed to your company from GS1, the not-for-profit body that runs the system. Barcodes from cheap “barcode reseller” sites, or numbers you make up, are rejected by major retailers and by Amazon, which checks numbers against the GS1 database. Once you have your GS1 numbers, you can create the barcode images here.
Downloads and print size
- SVG: sharp at any size; best for label and packaging design software.
- PNG: for documents, spreadsheets and web pages. Insert it at its original size or larger; shrinking a PNG blurs the bars.
- PDF and Print PDF: the barcode is placed so that one bar unit is 0.33 mm, the standard size for retail barcodes. Print at Actual size, not Fit to page.
Keep bars black, or very dark, on white. Red bars are invisible to most laser scanners, and low contrast fails at the till.
Questions
Why does it say my check digit is wrong?
EAN, UPC and ITF-14 numbers end in a digit calculated from the others, so a typo can be caught. If you enter the full number and the last digit doesn’t match, the tool tells you what it should be. Enter the number without its last digit and the check digit is added for you.
Do I need a QR code instead?
For links, contact details or anything a phone camera should read, yes: use the QR code generator. Built-in phone cameras do nothing useful with an ordinary barcode.