Posted: December 13 2007 at 11:50am | IP Logged

Hello, I am brand new to barcodes and I have a spec from a customer that wants to have a label printed.  Their spec says to use code 128, and one barcode it says to use bar width multiplier 2 and another label it says to use bar width multiplier 3.  The vendor I have printing these labels doesn't know what "bar width multiplier 2 or 3" means, and unfortuantly neither do I.  Can someone please explain to me what that is.

Thank You.

Posted: December 13 2007 at 12:43pm | IP Logged

The multiplier factor (2 or 3) applies to certain symbologies such as Code 39. In these symbologies there are two widths, one for the wide element, and another for the narrow element. The ratio of the wide element width vs the narrow element is the multiplier factor. Normally it should between 2 and 3.  We called it "NarrowToWideRatio":

http://mdn.morovia.com/manuals/mbc3/Property.NarrowToWideRatio.php

However, it does not apply to Code128. In Code128, there is only one width.