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<H1 ALIGN=LEFT>5.2 Stacked Symbologies</H1>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><A NAME="BASIC"></A><FONT SIZE=5><B>5.2.1 Basic Symbol
Stacking</B></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT>An early innovation to get more information into a
symbol, used primarily in the vehicle industry, is to simply stack
one-dimensional codes on top of each other. This can be achieved at
the command prompt by giving more than one set of input data. For
example</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><FONT FACE="Courier, monospace"><FONT SIZE=2>zint -d
'This' -d 'That'</FONT></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT>will draw two Code 128 symbols, one on top of the
other. The same result can be achieved using the API by executing the
<FONT FACE="Courier, monospace">ZBarcode_Encode() </FONT>function
more than once on a symbol. For example:</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><FONT FACE="Courier, monospace"><FONT SIZE=2>my_symbol->symbology
= BARCODE_CODE128;<BR>error = ZBarcode_Encode(my_symbol,
"This");<BR>error = ZBarcode_Encode(my_symbol,
"That");<BR>error = ZBarcode_Print(my_symbol);</FONT></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT>The example below shows 5 EAN-13 symbols stacked in
this way.</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><IMG SRC="stacked.png" NAME="graphics1" ALIGN=LEFT WIDTH=190 HEIGHT=100 BORDER=0><BR CLEAR=LEFT><BR><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><A NAME="CODE16K"></A><FONT SIZE=5><B>5.2.2 Code 16k
(EN 12323)</B></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT>A more sophisticated method is to use some type of line
indexing which indicates to the barcode reader which order the
symbols should be read. This is demonstrated by Code 16k which uses a
Code128 based system which can stack up to 16 rows in a block. This
gives a maximum data capacity of 77 characters or 154 numerical
digits and includes two modulo-107 check digits. Code 16k also
supports extended ASCII character encoding in the same manner as Code
128.</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><IMG SRC="code16k.png" NAME="graphics2" ALIGN=LEFT WIDTH=212 HEIGHT=120 BORDER=0><BR CLEAR=LEFT><BR><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><A NAME="PDF417"></A><FONT SIZE=5><B>5.2.3 PDF417 (ISO
15438)</B></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT>Heavily used in the parcel industry, the PDF417
symbology can encode a vast amount of data into a small space. Zint
supports encoding up to the ISO standard maximum symbol size of 925
codewords which (at error correction level 0) allows a maximum data
size of 1850 text characters, or 2710 digits. The width of the
generated PDF417 symbol can be specified at the command line using
the --cols switch followed by a number between 1 and 30, and the
amount of check digit information can be specified by using the
--security switch followed by a number between 0 and 8 where the
number of codewords used for check information is determined by
2<SUP>(value + 1)</SUP>. If using the API these values are assigned
to <FONT FACE="Courier, monospace">option_2</FONT> and <FONT FACE="Courier, monospace">option_1</FONT>
respectively. The default level of check information is determined by
the amount of data being encoded. International text support is
provided using the Latin-1 character set as described in <A HREF="appxa.html">Appendix
A</A>.</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><IMG SRC="pdf417.png" NAME="graphics3" ALIGN=LEFT WIDTH=240 HEIGHT=54 BORDER=0><BR CLEAR=LEFT><BR><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><A NAME="PDF417T"></A><FONT SIZE=5><B>5.2.4 Compact
PDF417</B></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT>Also known as truncated PDF417. Options are as for
PDF417 above.</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><IMG SRC="compact417.png" NAME="graphics4" ALIGN=LEFT WIDTH=172 HEIGHT=54 BORDER=0><BR CLEAR=LEFT><BR><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><A NAME="MICROPDF"></A><FONT SIZE=5><B>5.2.5
MicroPDF417 (ISO 24728)</B></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT>A variation of the PDF417 standard, MicroPDF417 is
intended for applications where symbol size needs to be kept to a
minimum. 34 pre-defined symbol sizes are available with 1 - 4 columns
and 4 - 44 rows. The maximum size MicroPDF417 symbol can hold 250
alphanumeric characters or 366 digits. The amount of error correction
used is dependant on symbol size. The number of columns used can be
determined using the <FONT FACE="Courier, monospace">--cols</FONT>
switch or <FONT FACE="Courier, monospace">option_2</FONT> as with
PDF417.</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><IMG SRC="micropdf.png" NAME="graphics5" ALIGN=LEFT WIDTH=110 HEIGHT=80 BORDER=0><BR CLEAR=LEFT><BR><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><A NAME="RSS14STACK"></A><FONT SIZE=5><B>5.2.6 GS1
DataBar-14 Stacked (ISO 24724)</B></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT>A stacked variation of the GS1 DataBar-14 symbol
requiring the same input (see section <A HREF="onedim.html#RSS14">5.1.12.1</A>).
The height of this symbol is fixed. The data is encoded in two rows
of bars with a central finder pattern. This symbol can be generated
with a two-dimensional component to make a <A HREF="composite.html">composite
symbol</A>.</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><IMG SRC="dbstack.png" NAME="graphics6" ALIGN=LEFT WIDTH=100 HEIGHT=26 BORDER=0><BR CLEAR=LEFT><BR><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><A NAME="RSS14OMNI"></A><FONT SIZE=5><B>5.2.7 GS1
DataBar-14 Stacked Omnidirectional (ISO 24724)</B></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT>Another variation of the GS1 DataBar-14 symbol
requiring the same input (see section <A HREF="onedim.html#RSS14">5.1.12.1</A>).
The data is encoded in two rows of bars with a central finder
pattern. This symbol can be generated with a two-dimensional
component to make a <A HREF="composite.html">composite symbol</A>.</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><IMG SRC="dbomni.png" NAME="graphics7" ALIGN=LEFT WIDTH=100 HEIGHT=138 BORDER=0><BR CLEAR=LEFT><BR><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><A NAME="RSSEXPSTACK"></A><FONT SIZE=5><B>5.2.8 GS1
DataBar Expanded Stacked (ISO 24724)</B></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT>A stacked variation of the GS1 DataBar Expanded symbol
for smaller packages. Input is the same as for GS1 DataBar Expanded
(see section <A HREF="onedim.html#RSSEXP">5.1.12.3</A>). In addition
the width of the symbol can be altered using the <FONT FACE="Courier, monospace">--cols</FONT>
switch or <FONT FACE="Courier, monospace">option_2</FONT>. In this
case the number of columns relates to the number of character pairs
on each row of the symbol. For symbols with a 2D component the number
of columns must be at least 2. This symbol can be generated with a
two-dimensional component to make a <A HREF="composite.html">composite
symbol</A>.</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><IMG SRC="dbexpand.png" NAME="graphics8" ALIGN=LEFT WIDTH=204 HEIGHT=100 BORDER=0><BR CLEAR=LEFT><BR><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><A NAME="CODABLOCK"></A><FONT SIZE=5><B>5.2.9 Codablock-F</B></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT>Based on Code 128 the Codablock-F symbol supports
extended ASCII characters in the Latin-1 codeset and features the
ability to scan and reconstruct the stacked symbol using a standard
1D barcode reader.</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><IMG SRC="codablock.png" NAME="graphics9" ALIGN=LEFT WIDTH=320 HEIGHT=162 BORDER=0><BR CLEAR=LEFT><BR><BR>
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