On the packaging of almost any product, you can now find a barcode - a mysterious combination of stripes and numbers, from which, as a rule, nothing is clear. Several myths have been created around barcodes, according to which, for example, knowing certain secrets, you can get information about the quality of a product. In fact, the barcode contains rather highly specialized information, but you can learn some facts from it.
Instructions
Step 1
Today there are two barcode standards in the world - 12-digit, used in Canada and the United States, and 13-digit, which is used in Europe and Russia. These standards apply to all types of products, except for newspapers, magazines and books, and are fully compatible.
Step 2
The first two or three digits of any barcode contain information about the country of origin. On the Internet, you can easily find a table containing a list of all countries with their corresponding digital codes. Please note that not all enterprises start separate barcodes for branches, therefore, the packaging of cookies produced in the Moscow region may have a barcode of the Netherlands, since the company is legally located there.
Step 3
The following figures (their number can vary from 3 to 7) contain information about the company that manufactured the goods. This code is assigned by state supervisory authorities, and without having a table of these codes, it is useless to try to decipher it.
Step 4
The company code is followed by the code of the product itself, which the seller or manufacturer sets independently. Since barcodes are designed to facilitate such procedures as storage, transportation and accounting, these numbers, as a rule, contain information that is required to identify goods: size, color, name, and others.
Step 5
The last digit of the barcode is the so-called control. It is from it that it is determined whether the barcode is correctly applied. There is a way to calculate the check digit yourself. This requires:
- add up all the numbers in even places and multiply this amount by 3;
- add up the rest of the numbers, except for the control;
- add up the results of the first and second steps;
- discard all digits of the received amount, except for the last one;
- subtract the resulting number from 10.
The number that came out as a result of all these calculations must match the check digit. This will mean that the code has been applied correctly.
