[barcode] a little help with EAN 128 for US Postal Service Tracking labels

[Steven R Blood]

Hi there-

I'm from the US and have used GNU barcode for 4 or 5 years. It's been a huge 
help and has never been a problem. So let me begin with by saying thanks 
(grazie).

Unfortunately, as of 31 January 2005, the US Postal Service has begun to 
enforce the use of EAN/UCC 128 for the tracking numbers on their labels (which 
is one of my primary uses of GNU barcode).

I've tried to figure out if GNU Barcode can do EAN 128 -- despite the fact 
that the man page explicitly says that it's not supported. My confusion is 
partially due to the fact that I have little expertise with barcodes (I 
just use them) and the following two posts to this list:

   http://lists.linux.it/pipermail/barcode/2004-August/000209.html
   http://lists.linux.it/pipermail/barcode/2004-August/000210.html

My understanding is that EAN 128 differs from Code 128 only by FNC1 characters. 
Is this correct? If so, I tried the suggestion in the second post by Franz:

    $ echo -e '\30142007450\3019101805213907968005044' > barcode.txt
    $ barcode -n -i barcode.txt -e 128 -u in -g 3.027x0.855

Unfortunately the barcode this generates does not match the one that the USPS 
provides. The number that I'm trying to encode is:

          420074509101805213907968005044
or      (420) 07450 (91) 01805213907968005044

It has two application identifiers (AI's). The first is 420 which identifies 
the subsequent five digits 07450 as the destination postal code. The next AI is 
91 which identifies the tracking number 01805213907968005044.


If it would be informative, I can post a PDF or postscript file on the web that 
has the barcode from the USPS and the barcode that I'm generating.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Steve



ps- here are some links that I've used:

EAN 128 FAQ:
   http://www.ean-int.org/index.php?http://www.ean-int.org/128.html&2

condensed EAN/UCC 128 specification:
   http://www.morovia.com/education/symbology/ean-ucc-128.asp

EAN 128 in USPS Confirmation Service
   http://www.morovia.com/education/symbology/postal128.asp

description of various symbologies (EAN 128 is towards the bottom):
   http://www.tec-it.com/asp/Poll/detail_bc_list.asp?id=BCSymbols&LN=1