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PDF417

PDF417 is a stacked 2D barcode symbology. It was designed to be read by conventional 1D barcode scanners in multiple passes, and is composed of multiple 1D barcodes stacked over each other.

PDF417 are often found on airline boarding passes and driving licenses.

A sample PDF417 barcode is shown below.

Sample PDF417 barcode

Symbology Characteristics

Configuration name

pdf417

ISO specification

ISO/IEC 15438

Encodable character set

Three different compaction modes to efficiently encode numeric, alphanumeric and binary data.

Capacity

The largest symbol can encode up to 3116 numeric characters, 2335 alphanumeric characters, or 1555 bytes of binary data.

Integrity protection

Reed-Solomon error correction, with ten error correction levels (0-9)

Quiet zone

A quiet zone of two modules (2X) is required around the symbol.

Configuration Options

PDF417 does not have any symbology-specific configuration options.

Limitations

The following elements of the ISO specification are not implemented:

  • Macro PDF417 (distributing data across multiple codes)

  • ECI (Extended Channel Interpretation)

Last modified: 12 September 2024