officefileapi-118336-barcode-generation-api-bar-code-recognition-specifics.md
This document describes the main specifics of bar code recognition and how to resolve the most frequently encountered issues when working with bar codes.
The bar code type (symbology) depends on your specific business requirements and the applied industrial standards.
In general, we recommend that you consider using Bar Code 2 of 5 Interleaved for encoding digits and Bar Code 39 for encoding the full range of ASCII characters.
For a list of supported bar codes, see Bar Code Types.
Some encodings enable you to insert a special FNC1 character for separating application identifiers from the rest of the bar code.
According to the GS1 specification, the FNC1 character is always inserted at the first position of the encoded data. Other identifiers can be inserted manually with the default “ # “ character.
Although you can use any ASCII character as the FNC1 placeholder, it will not be a part of the encoded data as it does not have any direct ASCII representation.
For the Code 128 symbology, you can also define FNC2-4 characters.
For the list of the available application identifiers, refer to the official documentation at www.gs1.org.
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Bar Code Library is built on top of the .NET Framework that does not provide an out-of-the-box support for any matrix and thermal printers.
To access the internal printer fonts or achieve the fastest printing speed possible, use the native approach suggested by the printer manufacturer. Typically, a manufacturer would provide a special series of control commands that should be directly sent to a printer’s port.
This document section provides solutions to the most common issues that you may encounter when creating bar codes.
The bar code is too “dense”
The bar code is correctly displayed on the preview but it is not scanned
The bar code is correctly displayed on the preview but it is scanned incorrectly
The “There are invalid characters in the text” error occurs