Yet despite their presence, many people are still unfamiliar with how barcode scanning works and how to go about implementing it. Luckily, with advances and standardization in computing technology, it is significantly easier today than it was 20 years ago.

The two basic technologies involved in barcode scanning are the barcode itself and the barcode scanner (also known as barcode reader). Barcodes come in a range of symbologies which are really just different representations of a barcode. There are numeric-only barcodes like UPC-A and 2 of 5, alpha-numeric barcodes like Code 128, and Code 39, and 2-Dimensional barcodes like PDF417 and DataMatrix. All told, there are probably over 100 different symbologies and while this may seem daunting at times, the good news is they the most common barcode symbologies are relatively standardized and are typically handled automatically by the barcode scanners decoder unit.

The barcode reader or scanner can generally be broken into two types: 1-D Barcode readers and 2-D barcode readers. As you might guess, 1-D Barcode Readers are used for scanning 1-D barcodes and 2-D barcode readers are used for reading 2-D barcodes. In general, the 1D barcode readers can scan most of the common 1-D barcode symbologies whereas the 2-D barcode readers can scan both the 1-D and the 2-D barcodes. Historically, 1-D barcode readers utilized a laser scanner which is why you'll often hear the term barcode laser scanner; today, many barcode scanners work by taking a picture of the barcode and then decoding that picture - which is why you are starting to see applications developed where you can scan a barcode with your cell phone. In fact, there is a price-shopping application available for the iPhone which allows you to scan a UPC barcode and then obtain product information about that item.

This approach of decoding a picture is typically called imaging and you'll sometimes here the term imager scanner for barcode readers that utilize this technology. It should be noted however that 2-D barcode scanning can be a little bit trickier than 1-D barcode scanning as a 2-D barcode scanner may not be able to scan the complete range of 2-d barcodes. Also, there are also basic 2-D barcode imagers referred to as linear imagers that can only handle linear 2-D barcodes.

In selecting a barcode reader, you'll need to know two basic things: 1) what type of barcode symbology you will be scanning and 2) how you are connecting the barcode scanner to a computer. Basically, for the first piece, you'll want to know whether you will be scanning a 1-D barcode or a 2-D barcode; if it a 2-D barcode, you'll want to know the exact type of 2-D barcode symbology you will be scanning. The most common ways to connect a barcode scanner to a computer is through your computers USB, Keyboard or Serial interface. Typically, it will be either the USB interface or the Keyboard Wedge Interface. The USB interface is pretty much "plug-and-play" today while the Keyboard Wedge may need some minimal configuration. A Keyboard Wedge configuration is pretty cool in that you utilize a "Y" cable to replace your current keyboard cable with the two inputs to the Y-Cable being the keyboard and the barcode scanner and the output connected to the keyboard input port of your computer. From your computers view, the input from the barcode scanner is no different than if you just typed it in from the keyboard.

If you're not using barcode scanning today in your business, chances you are missing a great opportunity to make your business more competitive. With today's technology and the maturation of the barcode, it is often very simple to implement barcode scanners into your everyday work process.

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