EAN8

EAN-8 is the EAN equivalent of UPC-E barcode. The primary purpose of the EAN-8 code is to use as little space as possible. EAN-8 is encoded using the three EAN-13 character sets and also has a check digit that is calculated in the same way as EAN-13 barcode.

The data digits in an EAN-8 symbol help you to identify particular product and manufacturer. Since a limited number of EAN-8 codes are available in each country, they are issued only for products in which insufficient space for a normal EAN-13 symbol.

The value to encode within EAN-8 has the following structure: 2 or 3 digits for Number System or Country Code, 5 or 4 digits for Product Code and 1 digit for checksum. Each country has a numbering authority which assigns manufacturer codes to companies within its jurisdiction.

Structure of EAN8 barcode:

An EAN-8 bar code has the following physical structure:

• Left-hand guard bars, or start sentinel, encoded as 101.
• Two number system characters, encoded as left-hand odd-parity characters.
• First two message characters, encoded as left-hand odd-parity characters.
• Center guard bars, encoded as 01010.
• Last three message characters, encoded as right-hand characters.
• Check digit, encoded as right-hand character
• Right-hand guar bars, or end sentinel, encoded as 101.