PDF417

PDF417

The PDF417 barcode symbology is 2D stacked-linear barcode that can encode full 256 character extended-ASCII.

Variants:

• Compact PDF417 is a shortened form of the PDF417 barcode that is used in applications where the space for the symbol is restricted.
• MicroPDF417 is a smaller variant of the PDF417 barcode.
• HIBC PDF417 is a variant of PDF417 that should be used when encoding HIBC formatted data.

Standards: ISO/IEC 15438, DD ENV 12925, AIM USS - PDF417.

Data and Options

• The data field can contain any extended ASCII data. The default interpretation of data by readers is in accordance with ISO/IEC 8859-1. When supported by the receiver characters from other code pages can be encoded using Extended Channel Interpretation (ECI).
• When the parse option is specified, any instances of ^NNN in the data field are replaced with their equivalent ASCII value, useful for specifying unprintable characters.
• When the parsefnc option is specified, non-data function characters can be specified by escape sequences:
  • ^ECI000000 to ^ECI811799: ECI indicators.
• The eclevel option is used to specify the error correction level, from 1 to 5. The default is to choose a standard level of error correction that is determined by the encoded data length.
• The fixedeclevel option will prevent the error correction level from being opportunistically raised when a better fix to the current matrix is possible.
• The columns option specifies the number of columns (or groups of bars) in the output symbol, from 1 to 30.
• The rows option specifies the minimum number of rows in the symbol, from 3 to 90.
• If rows is unspecified the encoder will select a number that creates a symbol that is the minimum size to represent the given data.
• The rowmult option is used to specify how tall each bar is, with respect to the minimum module width. The default is 3.
• The raw option denotes that the data field is providing the input as a pre-encoded codewords in ^NNN format, suitable for direct low-level encoding.
• Deprecated: Use Compact PDF417 instead. The compact option is used to create a compact/truncated PDF417 symbol that has fewer bars per row that a standard symbol and hence is more narrow.
• Deprecated: Internal use. The ccc option identifies this symbol as a CC-C 2D component of a GS1 Composite symbol.

Examples

Data:    PDF417
Options: 
Encoder: pdf417

Data:    P^068F417
Options: parse columns=2 rows=15
Encoder: pdf417

Data:    Strong error correction
Options: columns=2 eclevel=5
Encoder: pdf417

Data:    ^453^178^121^239
Options: raw columns=2
Encoder: pdf417