67
CHAPTER 7: Advanced Features
Code 128
Code 128 has three unique character subsets—codes A, B, and C—which are
shown in Table 7-3 on the following pages. When you enter data representing a
Code 128 bar code, follow these two steps:
1.
Define which code set you want to use: Type “A” to represent code A, “B” to
represent Code B, or “C” to represent code C.
2.
If you are using code set B, enter the data characters directly. The tilde (“~”)
character and other special characters are represented by the Symbol
Character Value found in the left column of Table 7-3.
If you are using code set A or C, enter the Symbol-Character Value found in
the left column of the table. Each character is represented by two digits or by
a tilde followed by a digit. For example, to bar code the ampersand (“&”)
character using Code Set A, type “06”.
Maximum number of data characters:
30 (includes special characters)
Valid characters:
Differs with selected code set; see
Table 7-3.
Example: ¬B2,
3,2,1,1,0,ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ¬B
Figure 7-7. Code 128.
To show how multiple character sets are used, study the following data string.
Height, width and other parameters were omitted in this example to focus your
attention on the data string. Please note that this example is for illustration
purposes only, and is not a recommended way of bar coding. The following data
string is a fairly complex way of bar coding “10Card10”.
¬B2,...,A1716~6Card~510¬B
A:
selects code set A
17:
selects the number “1” from code set A
16:
selects the number “0” from code set A
~6:
switches from code set A to code set B
Card:
selects the characters “PrintBoxes” from code set B
~5:
switches from code set B to code set C
10:
selects the number “10” from code set C
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
