The symbol comprises the following elements:

• Leading quiet zone

• Start character

• Input characters that represent data

• Two check digits

• Stop character

• Trailing quiet zone

Each data character in a Code 93 symbol is made up of six elements: three bars and three spaces. Bars can be one to three modules wide, and spaces can be one to four modules wide. These six elements are spread out over a space that is nine modules wide. (The name "Code 93" derives from the fact that every character consists of nine modules that are arranged into three bars [plus adjacent spaces].)

This symbology supports the following characters:

• All numeric digits (0-9)

• All uppercase letters (A-Z)

• The following symbols:

  • Percent sign (%)

  • Plus sign (+)

  • Dollar sign ($)

  • Slash mark (/)

  • Period (.)

  • Hyphen (-)

• Space character

• Four shift characters

The shift characters are used as needed to encode other characters from the 128-character ASCII set.

Code 93 contains two mandatory check digits that immediately precede the stop character. These check digits are based on the modulo 47 (mod 47) algorithm.

The recommended minimum symbol height for manual scanning is 5.0 mm or 15 percent of the symbol width (excluding quiet zones), whichever is greater. The quiet zones must be at least 10 modules wide.