Barcode label generator that prints in register

Print Avery labels online and have them land where they should

Generating a barcode is easy; getting the sheet to line up is where everyone comes unstuck. An Avery template is not “a grid of labels”: it is a specific top margin, a specific side margin, an exact width and height, and a column pitch that might be 2.5 mm or 3.175 mm depending on the part number. A millimetre and a half of error is invisible on the first row and completely wrecks the tenth.

So here you pick the stock by its part number — the one printed on the box you bought — and the PDF is laid out to those real measurements. Eleven templates: in Letter the Avery stock common in the United States (5160/8160, 5161, 5162, 5163, 5164 and 5167), and in A4 their European and Latin American equivalents (L7160, L7163, L7165, L7169 and L7651). The default paper follows the page language, so this page opens on Letter without you changing anything.

And one warning worth more than any feature: always print at 100%. Leave “fit to page” on and the printer shrinks the PDF by 3 or 4 percent, and the labels stop matching the stock no matter how correct the template is. Before spending an expensive sheet, run a test on plain paper and hold it up to the light against the label sheet.

Which symbology to choose

Code 128 is the default answer for inventory and logistics: letters, numbers and symbols, tight encoding — narrow for what it holds — and readable by any scanner of the last two decades. Without a specific reason to pick another, pick this one.

Code 39 is its predecessor. Uppercase and a handful of symbols only, and noticeably wider for the same data. Its one remaining advantage is that very old scanners and some never-updated industrial systems read it.

EAN-13 and UPC-A are a different animal: they are retail product codes, the ones the checkout scans. They are not for numbering your own shelves, because the number identifies a product registered with GS1. Use them only if you sell at retail and have your codes assigned.

QR and DataMatrix are two-dimensional: they hold far more — a full URL, several lines of text — in a tiny square. QR is readable by any phone, which makes it ideal for labels a human will scan with a handset. DataMatrix survives even smaller sizes and is the standard in electronics and healthcare, where the thing being labelled is minute.

Why an EAN-13 carries one extra digit

The thirteenth digit of an EAN-13 is not information: it is a mathematical check on the previous twelve. They are multiplied alternately by 1 and 3, summed, and the distance to the next multiple of ten is the check digit.

It exists for one precise purpose: if the scanner misreads a bar — because of a crease, a smudge or an awkward angle — the resulting number will not agree with its own check digit, so the scanner rejects the read rather than ringing up the wrong product. That is the difference between an error beep and a customer being charged for something else.

So if you paste twelve digits, we compute the thirteenth. And if you paste thirteen that do not agree, the tool tells you what the correct check digit would be instead of handing you a barcode no scanner will accept. UPC-A works the same way with eleven and twelve digits.

What goes on the label

The editor lets you decide which CSV fields print and in what order, the type size, and whether the code sits above the text or beside it. Rule of thumb: on wide, short labels — the classic address size — putting the code beside the text uses the space better; on squarer labels, above.

Leave printing the value under the bars switched on. It costs three millimetres of height and saves the day when the code gets scratched, wet, or the scanner simply refuses: somebody can type it. The blank margins either side are not decoration — they are the quiet zone the scanner needs to know where the code begins — and they are preserved even when you squeeze everything else.

The limits, stated before they bite

Up to 2,000 labels per batch; beyond that the browser starts to struggle and the job is better split. Text is truncated with an ellipsis when it will not fit the label width: a shortened name beats one running off the edge. Accented Latin characters print fine, but scripts like Cyrillic or Chinese do not, because the PDF's standard font does not cover them. And the thermal output makes one page per label at the exact size: if your printer expects something else, set that in its own driver.

Once you have the sheet, if you need to merge it with others or split it by page, the PDF toolbox does that without uploading anything either.