Goals
Please click the [ Mark Complete ] button at the bottom of this page when you’ve achieved the following goals:
- Explain why it is important to keep within the size specifications for barcode printing.
- Indicate where you would look up the ITF-14 size specifications (no need to memorise these)
Why is proper size specification important?
- You need to know what size to print the barcode on your product.
- Correct size ensures that the barcode scans correctly.
- Correct size is especially important if you need barcode verification.
- If you don’t keep within the size specifications, some retailers may reject your barcodes.
Specifications:
Below are the ITF-14 Barcode Specifications in millimetres. This page shows the officially allowed sizes of your ITF-14 Barcode on your carton
The top and bottom bearer bars are mandatory whereas the vertical bearer bars are optional provided a printing method is being used that doesn’t require printing plates.
Magnification:
The specified magnification range for an ITF-14 Barcode Symbol being scanned in a General Distribution Scanning environment is between 50 and 100%. For other scanning environments the range is 25-100%
If printing onto corrugate fibreboard the ITF-14 should be above 62.5%.
Height of Bars:
The minimum height for the bars in a General Distribution Scanning Environment is 32mm.
In other scanning environments the bar height should be as high as possible. 13mm is the minimum bar height, hence all ITF-14’s should exceed this height however every effort should be made to ensure that the height is as close as possible to 32mm.
Bar Width Ratio:
The bar width ratio is 2.5:1. The acceptable range for this ratio is between 2.25:1 and 3:1.
More Information, including the Human Readable Interpretation: ITF-14 Specifications 