CODABLOCK F
CODABLOCK F is a two-dimensional stacked symbology that contains from 2 to 44 stacked Code 128 barcodes. It was invented by Identcode Systeme GmbH in Germany in 1989 as a way of fitting a long data message into a small space, and it has been used primarily in the medical and electronics industries.
CODABLOCK F is defined in the AIM Europe Uniform Symbology Specification - CODABLOCK F standard.
The symbol comprises the following elements per row:
Rows are separated by a horizontal row separator bar that extends the width of the symbol (excluding the start and stop characters).
A CODABLOCK F symbol can hold a maximum of 2,725 characters. Rows must be completely filled with symbol characters, so filler characters may need to be used.
This symbology supports the 128 lower ASCII characters and the full 256-character extended ASCII set when the FNC4 shift character is used. Because CODABLOCK F uses Code 128, there are three character subsets (A, B, and C), which are summarized as follows:
Character Subset A: Includes all numeric values (0-9), uppercase alphabetic characters (A-Z), punctuation marks, seven special characters, and "control" characters (ASCII values 00 through 95).
Character Subset B: Includes all numeric values (0-9), uppercase and lowercase alphabetic characters (A-Z, a-z), punctuation marks, and seven special characters (ASCII values 32 through 127).
Character Subset C: Includes all numeric digit pairs from 00 through 99 and three special characters. This code set is numeric-only, but any one character represents two digits.
It is possible for one symbol to switch among the different character sets.
CODABLOCK F contains two mandatory check digits that are based on the modulo 86 algorithm and a mandatory row check character that is based on the modulo 103 algorithm. There is no conventional human readable interpretation for the check digits.
There can be from 2 to 44 rows in a single CODABLOCK F symbol. The symbol's aspect ratio can be adjusted to fit the available space as needed. The quiet zones must be at least 10X wide, where "X" is the current X dimension.
Symbol Structure