Code 39

Code 39

The Code 39 barcode symbology is discrete, variable length and self-checking.

Also known as: Code 3 of 9, LOGMARS, Alpha39, USD-3, USS-39.

Uses:

• Asset and inventory labels.
• US military shipping labels and container markings (LOGMARS, MIL-STD-129).
• Automotive trading-partner labels (AIAG B-10), each field carrying its Data Identifier.
• European automotive goods labels (Odette Transport Label, VDA 4902).

Variants:

• Code 39 Extended is a variant of Code 39 that can be used to encode full 128 character ASCII with the use of shift character combinations.
• HIBC Code 39 is a variant of Code 39 that should be used when encoding HIBC formatted data.
• AIM USD-2 is a subset of Code 39 containing the characters A-Z, 0-9, space, - and ..

Standards: ISO/IEC 16388, ANSI/AIM BC1 - USS Code 39, BS EN 800, MIL-STD-1189.

Data and Options

• The data field can hold any of the following:
  • Numbers 0-9
  • Capital letters A-Z
  • Symbols -.$/+% and space
• The includecheck option calculates the check digit.
• The validatecheck option takes the last character of the data to be the check character and refuses the data if it is wrong.
• The includecheckintext option makes the calculated check digit appear in the human readable text.
• The hidestars option suppresses the asterisks in the human readable text.

Examples

A basic symbol:

Data:    CODE39
Options: includetext
Encoder: code39

A symbol with a check digit:

Data:    CODE39
Options: includecheck includetext includecheckintext
Encoder: code39

A symbol with the asterisks hidden from the text:

Data:    CODE39
Options: hidestars includecheck includetext
Encoder: code39