The EAN-5 is a 5-digit
European Article Number
The International Article Number (also known as European Article Number or EAN) is a standard describing a barcode symbology and numbering system used in global trade to identify a specific retail product type, in a specific packaging configurat ...
code, and is a supplement to the
EAN Ean may refer to:
People
* Ean Campbell (1856–1921), Anglican bishop in the early 20th century
* Ean Elliot Clevenger, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and songwriter
* Ean Evans (1960–2009), bassist for Lynyrd Skynyrd from 2001 until his de ...
-13 barcode used on books. It is used to give a suggestion for the price of the book.
ISBN
The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier that is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.
An ISBN is assigned to each separate edition and ...
Encoding – Country and Currency Values Description
Encoding
The Encoding of EAN-5 characters is very similar to that of the other
European Article Number
The International Article Number (also known as European Article Number or EAN) is a standard describing a barcode symbology and numbering system used in global trade to identify a specific retail product type, in a specific packaging configurat ...
s. The only difference is that the digits are separated by 01. The EAN-5 always begins with '01011.' Also, the R-Code is not used.
The structure of the barcode is based on the
checksum
A checksum is a small-sized block of data derived from another block of digital data for the purpose of detecting errors that may have been introduced during its transmission or storage. By themselves, checksums are often used to verify data ...
. In order to compute the checksum, multiply each of the digits by either 3 or 9, alternating each time. Then add them and then do a mod 10. So the checksum for 05415 MN is 1 based on the following calculations:
0*3=0
5*9=45
4*3=12
1*9=9
5*3=15
----------
81 % 10 = 1
Once you have the checksum digit, you can look up the structure in the following table. Note that the checksum digit is not in the final 5 digits, and is not intended to validate the 5 digit data, but rather to validate the reading of the EAN-5 overall.
{, class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
, +Example - encoding 52495
, -
! Start !! 5 (G) !! Separator !! 2 (L) !! Separator !! 4 (G) !! Separator !! 9 (L) !! Separator !! 5 (L)
, -
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , {{mono, 0110001
References
NACS CodesBarcode Reference- Section 6.1.46.2
Barcode Writer- The basis for the barcode structure
- Two-Character and Five-Character to UPC symbol.
Barcodes