Bearer Bar
A bearer bar is a heavy rule printed around (or along the top and bottom of) an Interleaved 2 of 5 symbol to prevent short, partial scans from decoding as valid data.
What You Need to Know
ITF encodes digits in interleaved bar-space pairs, and because the symbology has no mandatory check digit, a scanner beam that crosses only part of the symbol height can read a truncated but internally consistent string — a classic cause of wrong numbers in warehouse receiving. The bearer bar blocks this: any beam crossing the full height must also cross the bearer bar, which the decoder recognizes as an invalid element and rejects.
For ITF-14 carton codes, GS1 requires bearer bars either fully surrounding the symbol or as a minimum 4.8 mm rule across the top and bottom. Bearer bars also physically protect the symbol on corrugated packaging by absorbing scuffs. When printing ITF-14, always include the bearer bar — it is part of the standard, not optional decoration.
Where Bearer Bar Applies
A dense digits-only linear barcode that interleaves bar and space character pairs — logistics workhorse for numeric data.
Generate ITF (Interleaved 2 of 5) →The GTIN-14 carton-level barcode: ITF with thick bearer bars, printed directly on corrugated shipping cases.
Generate ITF-14 →The 14-digit Global Trade Item Number for cases and inner packs, carried by GS1-128 or ITF-14 symbols.
Generate GS1-14 (GTIN-14) →