PDF417

The PDF417 barcode is a unique 2D barcode type is commonly used on FedEx shipping labels:

0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

From the 2D Barcode Action dialog box, select Properties:

The PDF417 Properties dialog box will display:

Options

Encoding Mode
There are three encoding modes. The Text option encodes the majority of text characters, while the Binary option encodes data bytes. The Binary option is used for international and extended characters. The default mode is the First character of data option, which compresses (encodes) the data based upon the the first character of the selected string being a single digit. This first character will not be a part of the barcode.

Columns
The number of data columns.

Rows
The number of rows of codewords.

X to Y Ratio
The X to Y ratio is the ration of the width of the narrowest barto the height of each row within the PDF417 symbol. The default value is 3, or a ratio of 1:3.

Resolution
The density of the barcode. 96 dpi (dots-per-inch) is low resolution, while 600 dpi is high resolution. The default is 96 dpi.

Error correction level
The Reed-Solomon error correction level placed in the symbol. The error correction level should be increased with the amount of data encoded. There are 7 levels.

Truncated
The Truncated option removes, or truncates, the right side of the PDF417 barcode.

NOTE: Characters, text, numeric values and bytes of data can be encoded in a PDF417 barcode. A two-dimensional imaging device such as a CCD camera is necessary to scan the symbology.