Can I Use a Single Barcode for Multiple Pieces of Information?

Some time ago I stumbled about an online discussion regarding bar-coding. The original question was something like:

"We need to print Barcodes on invoices which will encode the details of customer number along with material numbers and quantity. Is this possible?"

The discussion was quite interesting: some users believed this is not possible, other never heard of 2D codes, and so on...

So here is a basic introduction:

Question 1: Can I encode multiple pieces of data in a single barcode?
Answer: Yes. A barcode is not aware of the data it is encoding. So encoding multiple pieces of data is de-facto possible with almost every barcode.

Question 2: What is the preferred type of barcode for such an application?
The type of barcode required depends on the amount of data to be encoded, the available printing space - and the available decoding hardware:

Basically there are two types of barcodes:
* linear barcodes (1D codes):
they are constructed of single bars printed beside each other (e.g. they are used on products in the supermarket). Usually linear bar-codes encode up to 30 characters.

* 2D barcodes (bidirectional barcodes):
such codes are most likely printed as a dot-matrix and offer a much higher data density (up to several hundreds of characters per barcode)

Question 3: Which barcode is commonly used?

Usually the following linear barcodes are used:
* EAN and UPC codes: you may know such codes from items purchased in supermarkets. These barcodes are expecting a fixed numer of digits (e.g. EAN-13 encodes exactly 13 digits).
* Code 2 of 5 interleaved: this code can only encode an even number of digits, if the number of digits is odd use a leading zero.
* Code39: can encode A-Z, 0-9 and some other special characters. Please note that the first and last character of such a code must be the asterisk (*)
* Code 128, EAN-UCC 128: can encode an arbitrary number of characters (whole character set). In logistic applications it is quite common to separate special fields of a barcode with a special character (FNC1)

And these are the most common 2D barcodes:
* DataMatrix
* QR Code

Question 4: What are the pitfalls?
When using linear barcodes keep in mind that a bar-code must maintain a minimal "module width" (inexact definition: the width of the single bars and spaces) in order to be readable with a scanner. So the width of a linear barcode increases with the numbers of characters encoded. The maximum data capacity is limited by the available space and the capabilities of the scanning device.
For 2D codes the sam eis true for the single matrix-cells of the dot matrix.

Question 4: Which Barcode is recommended?
This clearly depends on the amount of data and the other restrictions mentioned above. In order to get a "scalable" solution we recommend 2D barcodes. In addition to a higher data capacity the usually offer built-in error correction and are less prone to decoding problems. But keep in mind that you need scanners capable to decode 2D bar codes (these devices are more expensive than linear barcode scanners).

Question 5: Can I try it?
You can play around with our demo software (free) to get some feeling for bar-coding:

Either in the web: https://www.tec-it.com/online-demos/tbarcode/barcode-generator.aspx?LANG=en
Or via download: https://www.tec-it.com/en/download/barcode-studio/Default.aspx
Hope this helps!