I need to create DataMatrix barcodes which may contain non-Latin characters. I have code which creates the barcodes correctly when they only consist of Latin characters; when I run the same code with non-Latin (Hebrew or Russian) characters, however, although the code runs to completion and the barcode is created, the non-Latin characters are not deciphered by the barcode reader. Any assistance or ideas would be greatly appreciated!
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Your issue is related to the character encoding used prior to generating the barcode. The encoding used by the generator to encode must match the encoding used by the reader to decode.
Possible encodings are:
- Extended Channel Interpretations (ECI) is supported by DataMatrix and other 2D barcode standards. The generator places an ECI identifying code inside the barcode data, so the reader knows to use ECI to correctly convert the data back to text.
- UTF-8 encodes pretty much any language.
- Code page is an older encoding, but if your generator is using it, you can use 1255 for Hebrew code page or 1251 for Russian code page. See this SO answer for more info.
To test your encoding, try Inlite's Online Barcode Reader (OBR) which should read the correct text for ECI and UTF-8 encoded barcodes. If it does, the problem is with your barcode reader which is not decoding correctly.
If OBR returns binary data, either your generator uses code page or does not encode correctly at all. Try another generator that supports ECI or UTF-8.
