Method and Apparatus for Generating a Barcode with a Human Readable Interpretation, a Printing Apparatus, and a Program

Abstract

The present invention is a system and method for generating a barcode with a human readable interpretation (HRI). The method involves receiving characters as an input data set that comprises a series of unique data sets each comprising a unique application identifier. For each adjacent pair of data sets, a special character is inserted between the two data sets of the pair. The method further includes generating a barcode encoding data set for encoding the barcode based on the input data set, including interpreting the special character as a separator between data sets; generating a data set for the HRI based on the input data set, including converting the special character to a “_” (space); and generating the barcode with the HRI including combining the barcode encoding data set and the data set for the HRI.

1 . A method of generating a barcode with a human readable interpretation, comprising the steps of:
 receiving characters as an input data set that comprises a series of unique data sets each comprising a unique application identifier and a unique data portion, each data set including a first special character immediately before its application identifier, and a second special character immediately after its application identifier, wherein each and every individual character in the input data set has a one to one correspondence with an individual symbol in the human readable interpretation;   generating a barcode encoding data set for encoding the barcode based on the input data set;   generating a data set for the human readable interpretation based on the input data set; and   generating the barcode with the human readable interpretation, including combining the barcode encoding data set and the data set for the human readable interpretation.   
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein generating the barcode encoding data uses only numeric characters in the input data set. 
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein:
 a third special character representative of a position in which a check digit is to be inserted into the barcode is in the input data set;   generating the barcode encoding data further comprises replacing the third special character with the calculated check digit value; and   generating the data set for the human readable interpretation further comprises replacing the third special character with the calculated check digit value.   
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 3 , in which the third special character is “*”. 
   
   
       5 . The method of generating a barcode with a human readable interpretation described in  claim 1 , wherein the barcode is a UCC/EAN-128 barcode. 
   
   
       6 . An apparatus for generating a barcode with a human readable interpretation, the apparatus comprising:
 an input unit configured to receive characters as an input data set that comprises a series of unique data sets each comprising a unique application identifier and a unique data portion, each data set including a first special character immediately before its application identifier, and a second special character immediately after its application identifier, wherein, for each individual character in the input data set, there is a corresponding symbol in the human readable interpretation;   a first generating unit configured to generate a barcode encoding data set for encoding the barcode based on the input data set;   a second generating unit configured to generate a data set for the human readable interpretation based on the input data set; and   a merging unit configured to combine the barcode encoding data set and the data set for the human readable interpretation.   
   
   
       7 . The apparatus of  claim 6 , further comprising a printer for printing the barcode. 
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein generating the data set for the human readable interpretation further comprises converting the second special character to a second symbol, the second symbol being a “_” (space). 
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 1 , in which:
 the first special character is ignored when generating a barcode encoding data set; and   the first special character is converted to a first symbol and the second special character is converted to a second symbol when generating a data set for the human readable interpretation.   
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 9 , in which the first symbol is a first character “(” and the second symbol is a second character “)”. 
   
   
       11 . A data recording medium including a computer-executable program comprising instructions for performing the method of  claim 1 . 
   
   
       12 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein:
 the application identifier includes non-numeric data;   generating the barcode encoding data set ignores the non-numeric data in the application identifier; and   generating the data set for the human readable interpretation does not ignore the non-numeric data in the application identifier.   
   
   
       13 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein:
 the input data set includes non-encoding characters which are not special characters and are not supported by the encoding scheme used to generate the barcode;   generating the barcode encoding data set step ignores the non-encoding characters; and   generating the data set for the human readable interpretation uses the non-encoding characters.   
   
   
       14 . A method of generating a barcode with a human readable interpretation, comprising the steps of:
 receiving characters as an input data set that comprises a series of unique data sets each comprising a unique application identifier, wherein, for each adjacent pair of data sets, a special character is inserted between the two data sets of the pair;   generating a barcode encoding data set for encoding the barcode based on the input data set, including interpreting the special character as a separator between data sets;   generating a data set for the human readable interpretation based on the input data set, including converting the special character to a “_” (space); and   generating the barcode with the human readable interpretation, including combining the barcode encoding data set and the data set for the human readable interpretation.