ISBN barcode generator

Creating ISBN-13 (Bookland) barcodes with 'AVS Barcode Source' image generation software

ISBN-13 barcodes are now found on the back cover of almost all new books - they are a mandatory requirement for most publishers and book shops, and will certainly get your book a wider exposure. An ISBN number is easy and inexpensive to obtain (see our article How to get a barcode for your book). This section describes the features of the 'AVS Barcode Source' Windows software that are specific to ISBN-13.

ISBN-13 barcodes are based on the EAN-13 barcode standard, which is also support by AVS Barcode Source. The EAN-13 specific features of the product are described here.

In ISBN-13, there are two barcodes - the main barcode which is a standard EAN-13, which encodes the ISBN number. The second optional barcode stores what are known as 'additional characters', which can be either 2 or 5 characters of extra data. In ISBN-13, this is almost always used to encode the price of the book.

The ISBN-13 standard also specifies that the ISBN number must be written above the barcode, in addition to the text below the barcode. The ISBN number above the barcode can include spaces and/or hyphens, which are not encoded in the barcode itself.

When the barcode is complete, it can be saved as one of a number of graphics formats such as BMP, TIFF or EPS (vector), for use in your desktop publishing software, or for providing to your printing company.

Note that the 'AVS Barcode Source' product supports a number of 1-dimensional (linear) barcode formats, not just ISBN-13. For a full list, see the main product details page. You can download a demo version of the software to try now, and if you decide to buy, we will email you an authorisation key which will unlock the full version.

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