Programming Codes
T480
Programmer’s Guide
Page
106
Rev A
100-14362
DataBar (RSS) GS-1 barcodes
The Reduced Space Symbology (RSS) barcodes are intended to encode 14 digit fields
and is intended to replace UPC barcodes in the Retail industry. In February 2007 the
GS1 organization took over control of the RSS barcodes and renamed them DataBar.
RSS barcodes use 6 variable bar and space widths to encode the value. Because of the
width encoding, a single scaling factor is used to adjust the barcode. The wide and
narrow bar settings are not used. Non-stacked barcodes will use the height setting,
however, stacked versions have specific height to width ratio requirements and will
adjust the ratios to fit in the selected height. The scale factor will also be used but will
only affect the width.
All RSS barcodes are encoded with awareness of the GS-1 General specification for AI
and AI field requirements. In some cases not all possible character sequences are
allowed in an AI field and many are fixed length. In some cases AI fields contain check
digits and during the encoding process they are removed. When specifying AI fields with
check digits the check digit must be passed to the EPIC 3000 printer. In some cases it
is used and in others it is removed and replaced by the reader. The EPIC 3000 will
make some attempt to verify the format, however only critical data that would prevent
encoding the data is actually checked by the printer. It’s up to the application
programmer to format the data in accordance with the GS-1 specification.
RSS barcodes may get excessively large. The printer will attempt to generate a barcode
that is the requested size but will automatically shrink the barcode scale if it will not fit in
the print zone. This may result in elements that are too small to print reliably. If that
happens the printer will not fault but will slow the print process and print the barcode
anyway. In general barcodes with a single dot wide element are unreadable.
There are several versions or formats of RSS bar codes and each has specific options
and requirements.
