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QR Code Guides & Tips

Practical, no-fluff guides for getting the most out of your QR codes and barcodes.

Jul 13

ITF-14 and Case Barcodes: A Guide to Shipping and Carton Labels

The barcode on a shipping case looks similar to the one on the product inside it — but it's encoding something meaningfully different.

Guides 7 min readRead
Jul 10

How to Set Up a Barcode System for Small Business Inventory

You don't need enterprise software or a GS1 registration to start barcoding inventory properly — just a consistent system and the right free tools.

Guides 8 min readRead
Jul 8

Postal Barcodes: POSTNET, PLANET & Royal Mail Explained

Every letter that reaches your mailbox without a human reading the address by hand passed through a barcode along the way — here's what those actually encode.

Education 7 min readRead
Jul 6

Barcodes for Healthcare: HIBC, Pharmacode, and Medication Safety

Medication errors are exactly the kind of mistake barcoding was built to prevent — here's how healthcare-specific barcode standards actually work.

Education 8 min readRead
Jul 3

2D Barcodes Explained: PDF417, Data Matrix, Aztec Code, and MaxiCode

QR codes get all the attention, but they're just one member of a much bigger family of 2D barcodes — each built for a specific job most people never notice.

Education 9 min readRead
Jul 1

GS1 Barcodes Explained: GS1-128, GTIN, and Supply Chain Identification

If you've ever wondered why every product in a modern supply chain seems to trace back to the same numbering system, this is why — and how to generate a compliant code yourself.

Education 9 min readRead
Jun 29

Code 128 vs Code 39: Choosing the Right General-Purpose Barcode

Neither of these is a retail product barcode — they're the workhorses of internal inventory, asset tracking, and shipping labels. Here's how to pick between them.

Guides 7 min readRead
Jun 26

EAN-13 vs UPC-A: The Complete Guide to Retail Product Barcodes

If you're putting a product on a real shelf, this isn't really a style choice — but knowing exactly why one format is required over the other will save you a rejected listing.

Guides 8 min readRead