PDF417

PDF417

The PDF417 barcode symbology is 2D stacked-linear barcode that can encode full 256 character extended-ASCII.

Uses:

• North American driver's licences and identity cards (AAMVA DL/ID Card Design Standard).
• Printed airline boarding passes (IATA Bar Coded Boarding Pass).
• Automotive transport labels (Global Transport Label: Odette, AIAG B-16, VDA 4994).

Variants:

• Compact PDF417 is a shortened form of the PDF417 barcode that is used in applications where the space for the symbol is restricted.
• MicroPDF417 is a smaller variant of the PDF417 barcode.
• HIBC PDF417 is a variant of PDF417 that should be used when encoding HIBC formatted data.

Standards: ISO/IEC 15438, DD ENV 12925, AIM USS - PDF417.

Data and Options

• The data field can contain any extended ASCII data. The default interpretation of data by readers is in accordance with ISO/IEC 8859-1. When supported by the receiver characters from other code pages can be encoded using Extended Channel Interpretation (ECI).
• When the parse option is specified, any instances of ^NNN in the data field are replaced with their equivalent ASCII value, useful for specifying unprintable characters.
• When the parsefnc option is specified, non-data function characters can be specified by escape sequences:
  • ^ECI000000 to ^ECI811799: ECI indicators.
• The eclevel option is used to specify the error correction level, from 0 to 8. The default is to choose a standard level of error correction that is determined by the encoded data length.
• The fixedeclevel option will prevent the error correction level from being opportunistically raised when a better fit to the current matrix is possible.
• The columns option specifies the number of columns (or groups of bars) in the output symbol, from 1 to 30.
• The rows option specifies the minimum number of rows in the symbol, from 3 to 90.
• If rows is unspecified the encoder will select a number that creates a symbol that is the minimum size to represent the given data.
• The rowmult option is used to specify how tall each bar is, with respect to the minimum module width. The default is 3.
• The raw option denotes that the data field is providing the input as pre-encoded codewords in ^NNN format, suitable for direct low-level encoding.
• The sampos, samtotal and samid options make the symbol one of a Macro PDF417 sequence of 2 to 99999 symbols, which a reader reassembles into a single message. All three are required:
  • sampos is the position of the symbol in the sequence, from 1 to samtotal.
  • samtotal is the number of symbols in the sequence. It is encoded as the segment count, and the last symbol of the sequence is marked as such.
  • samid is the file ID, which is the same in every symbol of the sequence, given as one or more groups of three digits, each from 000 to 899, for example samid=017053.
  • The optional fields that describe the file, such as its name, sender and time stamp, are not supported.
  • Macro PDF417 is not available with the raw option or for GS1 Composite symbols.
• The readerinit option denotes that the symbol is used for programming the barcode reader. Every symbol of a Macro PDF417 sequence for reader programming is given it. It is not available with the raw option or for GS1 Composite symbols.
• Deprecated: Use Compact PDF417 instead. The compact option is used to create a compact/truncated PDF417 symbol that has fewer bars per row than a standard symbol and hence is more narrow.
• Deprecated: Internal use. The ccc option identifies this symbol as a CC-C 2D component of a GS1 Composite symbol.

Examples

A basic symbol:

Data:    PDF417
Options:
Encoder: pdf417

A symbol using the parse option with fixed dimensions:

Data:    P^068F417
Options: parse columns=2 rows=15
Encoder: pdf417

A symbol with increased error correction:

Data:    Strong error correction
Options: columns=2 eclevel=5
Encoder: pdf417

A symbol using raw codeword input:

Data:    ^453^178^121^239
Options: raw columns=2
Encoder: pdf417