Symbology Properties

Symbologies often have different properties, such as symbol count (length of the barcode) or inverted colors (printed white on black). To provide optimal performances, some properties/values are disabled by default in our SDK. You might need to scan a symbology whose properties are by default disabled. This article lists all symbology specific properties, their defaults and possible values.

1D Symbology Properties

• Color-inverted (bright bars on dark background) decoding for symbologies that support it is disabled and must be explicitly enabled.
• Optional checksum digits (e.g. for interleaved 2 of 5 codes, or MSI-Plessey codes) are always returned as part of the data.

Symbology	Checksum	Symbol Count	Supports Color-Inversion	Extensions
EAN-13 UPC-A	Mandatory: mod10	Default: 12 Range: 12	yes	relaxed_sharp_quiet_zone_check remove_leading_upca_zero two_digit_add_on five_digit_add_on strict ocr_fallback
EAN-8	Mandatory: mod10	Default: 8 Range: 8	yes	relaxed_sharp_quiet_zone_check two_digit_add_on five_digit_add_on strict
UPC-E	Mandatory: mod10	Default: 6 Range: 6	yes	return_as_upca remove_leading_upca_zero two_digit_add_on five_digit_add_on strict
Two-Digit Add-on	Mandatory: mod10	Default: 2 Range: 2	yes	strict
Five-Digit Add-on	Mandatory: mod10	Default: 5 Range: 5	yes	strict
MSI Plessey	Mandatory: none Supported: mod10, mod11, mod1010, mod1110 Default: mod10	Default: 6-32 Range: 3-32	no	strict
Code 128	Mandatory: mod103	Default: 6-40 Range: 4-50	yes	strip_leading_fnc1 strict ocr_fallback
Code 11	Mandatory: none Supported: mod11 Default: mod11	Default: 7-20 Range: 5-34	no	strict
Code 25	Mandatory: none Supported: mod10	Default: 7-20 Range: 3-32	no	strict
IATA 2 of 5	Mandatory: none Supported: mod1010	Default: 7-20 Range: 3-32	no	strict
Matrix 2 of 5	Mandatory: none Supported: mod10	Default: 7-20 Range: 3-32	no	strict
Code 32	Mandatory: mod10	Default: 8 Range: 8	no	strict
Code 39	Mandatory: none Supported: mod43	Default: 6-40 Range: 3-50	yes	full_ascii relaxed_sharp_quiet_zone_check strict ocr_fallback
Code 93	Mandatory: mod47	Default: 6-40 Range: 5-60	yes	full_ascii strict
Codabar	Mandatory: none Supported: mod16, mod11	Default: 7-20 Range: 3-34	no	strict remove_delimiter_data ocr_fallback
GS1 DataBar 14	Mandatory: mod10	Default: 2 Range: 2	no	strict
GS1 DataBar Expanded	Mandatory: mod211	Default: 1-11 Range: 1-11	no	strict
GS1 DataBar Limited	Mandatory: mod89	Default: 1 Range: 1	no	relaxed_sharp_quiet_zone_check strict
ITF	Mandatory: none Supported: mod10	Default: 6-40 Range: 4-50	no	strict
ROYAL_MAIL_4STATE	Mandatory: mod103	Default: 7-24 Range: 4-50	no
KIX	Mandatory: none	Default: 7-24 Range: 4-50	no
LAPA	Mandatory: none	Default: 16 Range: 16	no
USPS Intelligent Mail	Mandatory: none	Default: 65 Range: 65	no
UPU S18 4-State	Mandatory: none	Default: 19 or 25 Range: 19 or 25	no	fluorescent_orange_ink
Australian Post 4-State	Mandatory: none	Default: 10-41 Range: 10-41	no	force_table_c force_table_n decode_bar_states
French Post	Mandatory: none		no	fluorescent_orange_ink

2D Symbology Properties

• Color-inversion (bright modules on a dark background) decoding is enabled by default only for QR Code and Micro QR Code. For all other 2D symbologies that support it, it is disabled by default and must be explicitly enabled.

Symbology	Supports Color-Inversion	Extensions
Aztec Code	yes
Data Matrix	yes	strip_leading_fnc1 (enabled by default) direct_part_marking_mode
DotCode	yes
MaxiCode	no
MicroPDF417	no
PDF417	no
QR Code	yes
Micro QR Code	yes
ArUco	yes

Symbology Extension Descriptions

Extension	Description
full_ascii	Interprets the Code39 code data using two symbols per output character to encode all ASCII characters.
relaxed_sharp_quiet_zone_check	Enables scanning codes that have quiet zones (white area before and after the code) that are significantly smaller than allowed by the symbology specification. Use this extension if you are having difficulties to scan codes due to quiet zone violations. However, enabling it may come at the cost of more false positives under certain circumstances.
return_as_upca	Transforms the UPCE result into its UPCA representation.
remove_leading_upca_zero	Removes the leading zero digit from the result if the UPCA representation extension ‘return_as_upca’ is enabled.
strip_leading_fnc1	Removes the leading FNC1 character that indicates a GS1 code. To determine whether a certain code is a GS1 code, use ref sc_barcode_is_gs1_data_carrier.
direct_part_marking_mode	Use this mode to improve scan performance when reading direct part marked (DPM) Data Matrix codes. Enabling this extension comes at the cost of increased frame processing times. It is recommended to restrict the scanning area to a smaller part of the image for best performance.
strict	Enforce strict standard adherence to eliminate false positives in blurry, irregular or damaged barcodes at the cost of reduced scan performance.
fluorescent_orange_ink	Enables the scanning of low contrast fluorescent orange codes. Enabling this option can have a negative impact on the scan performance of other symbologies.
force_table_c, force_table_n and decode_bar_states	For Australian Post 4-State, customer information is decoded by default with Table N, and Table C is used as a fallback. force_table_c and force_table_n respectively enforce decoding with either C or N tables, and the symbology extension decode_bar_states will return the error-corrected customer information bars as a string of the bar states, A for ascending, D for descending, T for tracker and F for full.
remove_delimiter_data	For Codabar, removes the start and stop characters from the code and returns only the body of the code in the result.
ocr_fallback	Enables Optical Character Recognition of text as a fallback when other readers fail. This feature requires Smart Scan Intention which is available in SparkScan, Barcode Capture, or through the Linux settings preset SC_PRESET_SINGLE_CODE_HAND_HELD. Optionally set a RegEx pattern to constrain results using SymbologySettings.ocrFallbackRegex(). Requires the LabelCaptureText module.

Calculating Symbol Counts for Variable-Length Symbologies

The length of data encoded in variable-length symbologies such as Code 128, Codabar, Code 39 etc. is measured as the number of symbols. Depending on the symbology, the symbol count includes the start and end symbol, and/or checksum characters. The following list shows how to calculate the number of symbols for each variable-length symbology. These counts can be used as the input to sc_symbology_settings_set_active_symbol_counts().

Interleaved-Two-of-Five

The number of symbols corresponds to the number of digits in the code. Note that the number of digits must be even.

Example: the code “1234567890123” has a symbol count of 14. For the active symbol count calculation, optional checksum digits are treated like normal data symbols.

Codabar

The number of symbols corresponds to the number of digits in the code, plus the start and end symbols.

Example: the code “A2334253D” has a symbol count of 7 + 2 = 9.

Code 11

The number of symbols corresponds to the number of digits in the code, plus one or two checksum symbols. For less than ten digits in the code, one checksum symbol is added. Two checksum symbols are added for ten or more digits in the code.

Example: the code “912-34956” (“912-349566”) has a symbol count of 9 + 1 = 10. The code “912-3495-6” (“912-3495-638”) has a symbol count of 10 + 2 = 12.

Code 128

The number of symbols depends on the encoding used (A, B or C). All encodings require a start, an end and a checksum symbol. The ASCII encoding modes (A and B) store each character in one symbol.

Example: the code “ABC123” in mode A has a symbol count of 6 + 2 + 1 = 9.

The numeric encoding mode (C) encodes pairs of digits in one symbol.

Example: the code “123456” has a symbol count of 3 + 2 + 1 = 6.

Some encoders switch modes inside the code using switch symbols to optimize the code length. In this case the exact encoding used is needed to compute the number of symbols.

Code 93

The number of symbols corresponds to the number of characters in the code, plus the start and end symbols and 2 checksum digits. Shift characters used in “extended code93” are treated as normal data symbols.

Example: the code “ABCDE12345” has a symbol count of 10 + 2 + 2 = 14.

Code 39

The number of symbols corresponds to the number of characters in the code, plus the start and end symbols. Note that the start and end symbols are not included in the returned barcode data.

Example: the code “4F70050378196356D” (“*4F70050378196356D”) has a symbol count of 17 + 2 = 19.

MSI Plessey and Code 25

The number of symbols corresponds to the number of digits in the code.

Example: the code “12345674” has a symbol count of 8. For the active symbol count calculation, optional checksum digits are treated like normal data symbols.

GS1 DataBar 14

The symbol count corresponds to the number of finder patterns in the code. Each finder is accompanied by two data segments.

GS1 DataBar Expanded

The symbol count cannot be changed. All lengths defined by the standard are supported.

ROYAL_MAIL_4STATE

The number of symbols corresponds to the number of characters in the code, including the checksum character.

KIX

The number of symbols corresponds to the number of characters in the code.

UPU 4-State

The number of symbols corresponds to the number of code words. Two lengths are supported, 19 or 25 codewords with a maximum number of error correcting codewords of 6 or 12 respectively.

Australian Post 4-State

The number of symbol corresponds to 10 digit FCC and DPID codes, and up to 31 characters representing the customer information bar states.