General

What is a Barcode?

In short a barcode is a font that computers can read visually. For a computer to read a barcode it needs eyes, in the form of a barcode reader. Just like any font, you can type what ever you want. You can type numbers, texts, sentences just like using a normal font. And just as before, what you type needs to mean something for someone… or something.

Example: Let’s say you want type your phone number. In a “human” font it would look like this:
004651410050

Your eyes interprets this series of digits and you would know what to do with them.

Now, the same phone number could be typed using a barcode: 

Where are barcodes used?

One of the most common places you encounter barcodes are at your local store. You know that “Beep!” that sounds over and over? Thats a bar code reader reads each of the products into the cash register. Other places you often encounter barcodes are on tickets, coupons, parcels, ID-cards and more.

How can I use barcodes with eMarketeer?

First of all, as in any scenario using barcodes, you need a system to generate the codes and one system to scan the barcodes. eMarketeer is just a way to transport your code from one system to another. Example: You want to send out an e-mail with coupons to your customers. You already have the article-numbers for the items, and you already have a cash register to scan barcodes. What eMarketeer can do, is to take take the information and send a ready-to-print e-mail with the offers including barcodes and all. The customers only need to print the e-mail, and bring it to the store to scan it and get the discount.

Barcode standards

eMarketeer currently support the following barcode standards. The default standard used in the eMarketeer blocks is Code 128. To change barcode standard, you need to edit the barcode in developer mode.

• Code 128
• Codabar
• Code 11
• Code 39
• Code 39 Extended
• Code 93
• EAN-8
• EAN-13
• ISBN-10 / ISBN-13
• Interleaved 2 of 5
• Standard 2 of 5
• MSI Plessey
• UPC-A
• UPC-E
• UPC Extension 2
• UPC Extension 5
• PostNet