CODE 128 INFORMATION
B
The 128 bar code is divided into 3 character sets (Code A, Code
B, and Code C). Depending on the character set used, the same
bar pattern can be one of three characters. Table 1, at the end of
this appendix, lists the characters in each character set.
Code A contains upper case letters (A-Z), special
characters, and control characters. Code A
does not have lower case letters.
Code B contains upper and lower case alphanumeric
characters and special characters. Code B
does not have control characters.
Code C character set contains pairs of numbers. In
code C, each bar pattern represents a pair of
numbers, ranging from 00 to 99.
When the data contains at least four numbers in a row, 128
switches to code C, then prints one bar pattern for each pair of
numbers. This doubles the numeric data per inch.
Therefore, it may be better to pad numeric data with a zero if it
has an odd number of characters. The bar codes below show the
difference between an odd number of numeric characters and an
even number of numeric characters. Do this only if your system
can ignore leading zeros.
Bar Code 1
Data = 1234567
Bar Code 2
Data = 01234567
Code 128 Information B-1