Barcode Generator (EAN-13)

Not for retail. GTINs that scan correctly in shops are allocated through GS1, which issues your company prefix; numbers you make up may already belong to someone else. What you can freely use are the in-store codes beginning 20–29, intended for internal numbering.

It is the GS1 prefix administered by GS1 Serbia, so codes beginning 860 were issued to companies registered there. A prefix identifies where the number was issued, not where the product was made.

Weight the digits alternately by 1 and 3 starting from the right, add them, then take the amount needed to reach the next multiple of ten. For EAN-13 that means the leftmost digit has weight 1; for EAN-8 it has weight 3.

Because it has no bars of its own. It is encoded in the parity pattern of the next six digits, a trick that let EAN-13 extend the 12-digit UPC symbol without making it wider.

They are the empty margins on both sides — 11 modules left and 7 right for EAN-13. A scanner uses them to find the start and end of the symbol, so cropping them off or printing right to the edge of a label is the most common reason a barcode will not read.

SVG for anything going to print or into a design file: it is vector, so it stays sharp at any size. PNG is convenient for a quick label, a spreadsheet or a web page.

The retail nominal size for EAN-13 is about 37 × 26 mm, and the standard allows roughly 80% to 200% of that. Below that range the bars get too narrow for a typical scanner and the code becomes unreliable.

Keep dark bars on a light background with strong contrast — black on white is safest. Red bars are effectively invisible to a red-laser scanner, and pale bars on dark backgrounds usually fail too.

Not directly, but a UPC-A code is an EAN-13 with a leading zero, so entering 0 followed by the 11 digits produces a symbol whose bars match. Only the printed digit layout differs from a true UPC-A label.

Retail GTINs are fixed length. Numbers shorter than 12 digits are usually GTIN-8 codes or internal references — pad on the left with zeros only if the number really is a shorter GTIN, otherwise you are creating a different code.

The encoding follows the symbology, so yes, provided you print it at a sensible size, keep the quiet zones and use good contrast. Test with a phone scanner app before ordering thousands of labels.

No. Encoding and drawing happen in your browser, and the SVG and PNG are generated locally — nothing about your product numbers is uploaded.