This section is intended to give you a basic understanding of the bar code and how it is set up, symbologies and compliance labels with many samples of each.

In 1949, N.J. Woodland filed a patent for a series of circular symbols. These symbols were to be placed on every item in a retail supermarket for the purpose of improving productivity and automating the checkout process. But, it was not until more than two decades later (1973) that the grocery industry gathered to settle on some standard form of product identification. The end result was the U.P.C. (Universol Product Code), a 12-digit number unique to each product. From that initial meeting, an organization was created to standardize and implement the new concept.