Category: Barcodes

10 Reasons to Use Barcodes

We’ve decided to do a countdown of all the reasons why you should consider using barcode labels. So without any further ado: You don’t need a Ph.D. in barcoding to operate a barcoding system. (We have barcoding geniuses on our staff, ready and willing to give you terrific instructions.) The data encoded is scalable to […]

Handwriting Labels Cramps

So you’ve got a situation on your hands. You’ve been handwriting labels for years, but now you notice productivity isn’t where it should be. You’re paying employees for more labor hours, but see even less output since there are so many mistakes. Handwriting Labels–Worth It? Statistics show that 1 out of every 300 handwritten characters […]

You Can Learn to Read Barcode!

We are nerds and we know it. We eat, sleep, joke about and critique barcode labels all the time, here at EIM. One of us even owns a pair of barcode label cufflinks. He was busted wearing them at one of our holiday parties. We know, we know. Pathetic. What’s good about our nerdiness, however, […]

The UPC

The Universal Product Code (UPC) is a barcode symbology that is widely used in the United States and Canada for tracking trade items (fancy term for products) in stores. Practically every item purchased from a grocery store, department store or mass merchandiser has a UPC barcode on either a label or a tag. This helps […]

There’s more to writing a book than words…

More than likely when you first started writing your book, you had no idea of how complicated it can get trying to get a book published. Besides deciding on a subject and making sure that what you have to say is really readable and interesting, how many copies will you want to have printed? Have […]

How to Recognize Code 39

No matter what you call it – Code 39, Code 3 of 9, USS Code 39, USD-3, Alpha39, or Type 39, this barcode has remained one of the most popular codes in use today – except for the UPC code used on all retail merchandise. Code 39 was the first alphanumeric code to be developed […]

Behind the Bars

All the technology we are so utterly surrounded by these days can still be as unfamiliar to us as a language we have never heard before. Barcodes, for example – we all see them every day whether we are aware of it or not. They are everywhere, but DID YOU KNOW there are many different […]

Why are Quiet Zones So Important?

Here is another use for that #2 pencil… by just using a pencil you can test to see if your barcodes are accurate enough to be scanned properly! First off, what is a Quiet Zone? This is a blank area or margin on either end of a lineal barcode (such as Code 39 and Code […]

Interleaved 2 of 5

The Interleaved 2 of 5 barcode is often an overlooked and yet important symbology used in the shipping and warehouse industries. Typically it is printed in low density to make it easy to scan or “read,” but it really is a high-density, numbers-only barcode developed in 1972 by David Allais, a leader in barcode design and […]

PDF417 Barcodes

PDF417 Barcodes are one of the four most popular two-dimensional barcodes to be developed; it was created in 1992 by Symbol Technologies, a leading manufacturer of barcode scanners at the time.  (The other three common 2D codes are QR Code, DataMatrix and MaxiCode; there were several others developed between 1988 and 1995 but they just […]

Barcode History – How Early Barcodes Changed Our Lives

There’s some misconception in barcode history that the retail UPC barcode was the very first barcode. Actually, the FIRST BARCODE SYMBOLOGY was round and wasn’t officially called a barcode when it was invented. It looked like a bull’s eye target because it was a series of concentric circles designed to be scanned from any direction; […]

Why Should I Scan My Barcodes Before I Buy Them?

Are you sending us barcodes to print? We generally advise all of our customers to scan their proofs! Some customers have trouble properly scanning and approving their barcodes before placing an order, causing some mix up between the specifications and what we create. Don’t worry, there’s an easy solution and plenty of ways to do […]