ITF-14 Barcode Generator
The carton barcode. ITF-14 encodes a 14-digit GTIN in heavy bars designed to stay readable when printed straight onto corrugated cardboard.
The heavy frame around it is a bearer bar rather than a design border, and it is there to stop a partial scan reporting a valid but wrong number. The fourteen digits identify a case rather than the item inside it, so the consumer unit still needs a retail barcode of its own.
- Shipping cartons and cases
- Outer packaging
- Wholesale and distribution
- Warehouse intake
Preview
Format Guide
ITF-14 — Interleaved 2 of 5 for shipping containers.
Enter 13-14 digits
What is ITF-14?
ITF-14 is Interleaved 2 of 5 pinned to exactly fourteen digits and wrapped in a heavy border. It marks the outer carton rather than the item inside it: the fourteen digits are the GTIN of the trade unit, usually the item's own number with a packaging indicator in front. The thick frame around it is a bearer bar, and it is functional: it stops a scanner reading part of the symbol and returning a shorter, wrong number.
Technical characteristics
- Length
- Exactly 14 digits
- Structure
- Packaging indicator, GS1 company prefix, item reference, check digit
- Check digit
- Modulo 10, calculated by the generator
- Encoding
- Digits interleaved in pairs, one in the bars and one in the spaces
- Bearer bars
- Part of the symbol; they prevent a partial scan being misread
The bearer bar, and the failure it prevents
The heavy frame around an ITF-14 is not decoration and is not a border the designer chose. It is a bearer bar, and it exists to stop a specific and dangerous failure called a short scan.
Interleaved Two of Five encodes digits in the bars and the spaces at once. A scan line that enters through the top or bottom edge partway across the symbol can therefore read a valid but incomplete number, and report it as a successful scan of a different case. The bearer bar makes such a line cross a solid block first, so the read fails instead of succeeding wrongly.
It identifies the case, not the item
An ITF-14 carries a fourteen-digit number built from the item GTIN with an extra digit on the front. That leading indicator digit says what packaging level this is: a case of twelve and a case of twenty-four of the same product carry different indicators and are therefore different numbers.
So the case barcode is not the item barcode with a box drawn around it. Scanning a case at a checkout would charge for the wrong thing, which is why the consumer unit inside carries its own EAN-13 or UPC-A and the outer carries this.
Printed straight onto the board
ITF-14 was designed to be printed directly onto corrugated cardboard, which is the most hostile common substrate there is: absorbent, ridged, and usually printed flexographically with substantial ink spread.
That is why the format is physically large and its narrow element comparatively wide. It is also why bar width reduction matters more here than anywhere else: ask the printer for the figure for that press and stock, and expect it to be larger than anything you have applied to a label.
ITF-14 FAQs
Why must it be an even number of digits?
Interleaved 2 of 5 encodes digits in pairs, one in the bars and one in the spaces between them. ITF-14 fixes the count at fourteen, which is even by definition.
Why is ITF-14 printed on cardboard rather than EAN-13?
It is built for it. The bars are wide and tolerant of the ink spread you get printing straight onto corrugated board, where the finer bars of an EAN-13 would blur into each other.
What are the thick lines around the barcode?
Bearer bars. They keep the print roller flat across the symbol and stop a scanner clipping the edge and reading a partial, shorter number as if it were complete.
How many digits does it take here?
Thirteen or fourteen. Thirteen means the check digit is calculated for you; fourteen means yours is used as given. The count matters more than in most formats because ITF encodes digits in pairs, so an odd number has nowhere to go, which is why the field refuses it rather than padding a zero you did not ask for.