Code 128 Symbology Introduction

Chapter 2. Code 128 Characteristics

As you can see in Table 3.1, “Encoding Code Table”, three CODEs are: "Code A", "Code B", "Code C".

Within a symbol, one can shift between code sets by using the special character CODE and SHIFT.

The CODE character shifts the code for all subsequent characters to the specified code set.

The SHIFT character just changes the next character and only changes between Code Set A and Code Set B or the reverse.

So, within the data in Code 128, changes to other character Set:

For character set A: change to character set B is "Code B=100", to character set C is "Code C=99"

For character set B: change to character set A is "Code A=101", to character set C is "Code A=99"

For character set C: change to character set A is "Code B=101", to character set C is "Code B=100"

The example of changing to Character Set C in Character Set A using 99 = "Code C", can be found in later Section 2.5, “Calculate the Check/Checksum Digit”.