Pharmacode Barcode Generator

Pharmacode is a barcode format used exclusively in the pharmaceutical industry. It encodes a single number (3 to 131,070) using thick and thin bars. It verifies that the correct medication is being packaged or dispensed.

Pharmacode can encode any integer from 3 to 131,070. Values 1 and 2 are not valid because they would produce barcodes that are too short for reliable reading.

Pharmacode uses a binary encoding scheme. Thin bars represent value 1 and thick bars represent value 2. The barcode is read from right to left, with each bar's value multiplied by increasing powers of 2.

No. Pharmacode is designed to be readable in both directions — left to right and right to left — producing different valid numbers. This bidirectional reading is actually a feature for redundancy.

While technically possible, Pharmacode is specifically designed for pharmaceutical applications. For general-purpose numeric encoding, Code 128 or Code 39 would be more appropriate.

Not all standard scanners support Pharmacode. Pharmaceutical-grade scanners and packaging line scanners typically include Pharmacode support. Consumer-grade scanners may not recognize it.