bwip-js is a comprehensive barcode generation library for Node.js and the browser. It supports over 100 different barcode formats, including linear barcodes, postal barcodes, and 2D barcodes. The library is built on top of the BWIPP (Barcode Writer in Pure PostScript) project, ensuring high-quality and accurate barcode generation.
Generate Linear Barcodes
This feature allows you to generate linear barcodes such as Code 128. The code sample demonstrates how to create a Code 128 barcode with specific text, scaling, height, and text alignment.
const bwipjs = require('bwip-js');
bwipjs.toBuffer({
bcid: 'code128', // Barcode type
text: '0123456789', // Text to encode
scale: 3, // 3x scaling factor
height: 10, // Bar height, in millimeters
includetext: true, // Show human-readable text
textxalign: 'center', // Always good to set this
}, function (err, png) {
if (err) {
// `err` may be a string or Error object
console.log(err);
} else {
// `png` is a Buffer
// png.length
// png.readUInt32BE(16)
}
});Generate 2D Barcodes
This feature allows you to generate 2D barcodes such as QR codes. The code sample demonstrates how to create a QR code with specific text, scaling, version, and text alignment.
const bwipjs = require('bwip-js');
bwipjs.toBuffer({
bcid: 'qrcode', // Barcode type
text: 'https://www.example.com', // Text to encode
scale: 3, // 3x scaling factor
version: 5, // QR Code version
includetext: true, // Show human-readable text
textxalign: 'center', // Always good to set this
}, function (err, png) {
if (err) {
// `err` may be a string or Error object
console.log(err);
} else {
// `png` is a Buffer
// png.length
// png.readUInt32BE(16)
}
});Generate Postal Barcodes
This feature allows you to generate postal barcodes such as USPS Intelligent Mail. The code sample demonstrates how to create a USPS Intelligent Mail barcode with specific text, scaling, height, and text alignment.
const bwipjs = require('bwip-js');
bwipjs.toBuffer({
bcid: 'usps4cb', // Barcode type
text: '01234567094987654321', // Text to encode
scale: 3, // 3x scaling factor
height: 10, // Bar height, in millimeters
includetext: true, // Show human-readable text
textxalign: 'center', // Always good to set this
}, function (err, png) {
if (err) {
// `err` may be a string or Error object
console.log(err);
} else {
// `png` is a Buffer
// png.length
// png.readUInt32BE(16)
}
});JsBarcode is a simple and lightweight barcode generation library for JavaScript. It supports a variety of linear barcode formats but does not support 2D or postal barcodes. Compared to bwip-js, JsBarcode is easier to use but less feature-rich.
QRCode is a popular library for generating QR codes in JavaScript. It is highly focused on QR codes and offers extensive customization options. However, it does not support other types of barcodes, making it less versatile than bwip-js.
The barcode package is another library for generating barcodes in Node.js. It supports a limited number of linear barcode formats and lacks support for 2D and postal barcodes. It is simpler but less comprehensive compared to bwip-js.
bwip-js is a translation to native JavaScript of the amazing code provided in Barcode Writer in Pure PostScript. The translated code can run on any modern browser or JavaScript-based server framework.
The library has encoding modules for over 100 different barcode types and standards. All linear and two-dimensional barcodes in common use (and many uncommon ones) are available. An exhaustive list of supported barcode types can be found at the end of this document. Barcodes are generated as PNG images (node-js and react-native) or to a canvas (browser) or as SVG (all platforms).
As of version 4.5, bwip-js has been partitioned into four platform-specific packages plus the cross-platform main package. The sub-packages are currently experimental but are the solution to current build chains not properly supporting the
exportsmap inpackage.json. Please use them and report any issues you find.
bwipjs Methods ReferenceThe bwip-js package has been partitioned into four platform-specific packages plus the main cross-platform package. If you install the main package and cannot get its exports to work with your build stack, try installing a platform-specific package. The platform-specific packages are ES modules only, so you will need a modern build environment. The exception is the node package, which also contains a require() compatible export.
You can download the main package using:
npm install bwip-js
Or one of the platform-specific packages using:
npm install @bwip-js/node
npm install @bwip-js/browser
npm install @bwip-js/react-native
npm install @bwip-js/generic
The node, browser and react-native packages include both an image rending interface (toCanvas() on the browser, toBuffer() on node, toDataURL() on react-native), plus the SVG and custom drawing context interfaces.
The generic package contains only exports that run on any platform, namely the SVG and custom drawing context interfaces.
The latest code can be obtained from github:
https://github.com/metafloor/bwip-js
The bwip-js branches and the npm versions are automatically sync'd with each release. The main package is located under the master branch; the platform-specific packages are maintained under their like-named branches.
An online barcode generator demonstrates all of the features of bwip-js. The app is also available in the root bwip-js directory. See Demo HTML App.
A bwip-js barcode service is available online, ready to serve up barcode images on demand.
You can generate barcodes from anywhere on the web. Embed the URLs in your HTML documents or retrieve the barcode images directly from your non-JavaScript server. (JavaScript-based servers should use the bwip-js code directly - it will be a lot more performant.)
For details on how to use this service, see Online Barcode API.
Most of the public methods of the bwip-js export use an options object. Only two values are required:
bcid : The name of the barcode type/symbol.text : The text to encode.All remaining options are optional, though you may find some quite useful.
The options values can be divided into two parts, bwip-js specific options and BWIPP options.
The bwip-js options are:
scaleX : The x-axis scaling factor. Must be an integer > 0. Default is 2.
scaleY : The y-axis scaling factor. Must be an integer > 0. Default is scaleX.
scale : Sets both the x-axis and y-axis scaling factors. Must be an integer > 0.
rotate : Allows rotating the image to one of the four orthogonal orientations. A string value. Must be one of:
'N' : Normal (not rotated). The default.'R' : Clockwise (right) 90 degree rotation.'L' : Counter-clockwise (left) 90 degree rotation.'I' : Inverted 180 degree rotation.binarytext : The default behavior is to encode the text string as UTF-8 binary bytes. If the text is already 8-bit encoded, you can disable this behavior by setting the flag to true.
padding : Shorthand for setting paddingtop, paddingleft, paddingright, and paddingbottom.
paddingwidth : Shorthand for setting paddingleft and paddingright.
paddingheight : Shorthand for setting paddingtop and paddingbottom.
paddingtop : Sets the height of the padding area, in points, on the top of the barcode image. Must be an integer >= 0. Rotates and scales with the image.
paddingleft : Sets the width of the padding area, in points, on the left side of the barcode image. Must be an integer >= 0. Rotates and scales with the image.
paddingright : Sets the width of the padding area, in points, on the right side of the barcode image. Must be an integer >= 0. Rotates and scales with the image.
paddingbottom : Sets the height of the padding area, in points, on the bottom of the barcode image. Must be an integer >= 0. Rotates and scales with the image.
backgroundcolor : This is actually a BWIPP option but is better handled by the bwip-js drawing code. Expects either a hex RGB, RRGGBB or CCMMYYKK string value or CSS-style #RGB or #RRGGBB string value.
For the BWIPP specific options, you will need to consult the BWIPP documentation to determine what options are available for each barcode type.
All of the BWIPP color options (e.g. barcolor, textcolor, bordercolor) can be specified using either RGB, RRGGBB or CCMMYYKK formats or the CSS-style #RGB and #RRGGBB formats.
Note that bwip-js normalizes the BWIPP width and height options to be in millimeters.
The resulting images are rendered at 72 dpi. To convert to pixels, use a factor of 2.835 px/mm
(72 dpi / 25.4 mm/in). The bwip-js scale options multiply the width, height, and padding.
An important note about the BWIPP
widthandheightparameters.
Barcodes have the concept of module width (and height if a two-dimensional barcode). For linear barcodes, the module width is the width of the narrowest bar, and all other bar widths are a multiple of it. For 2D symbols, module width and height are the dimensions of the square or rectangle that defines the symbol's layout grid.
For a barcode to be "in spec", the individual module dimensions must be consistent throughout the
symbol. With high resolution printing, you can add/subtract a dot to adjust the size of individual
modules so the overall image meets the requested width or height, while still keeping the module
size within spec. This is the intention behind BWIPP's width and height parameters.
bwip-js is designed for web usage, with a target display resolution of 72dpi. (All of BWIPP's internals are calculated in points and bwip-js just maps 1pt to 1px.) At that low resolution, it is not possible to add or subtract pixels without causing the symbol to go out of spec. Imagine a fairly common module width of 2px. If you add or subtract a pixel, you have changed the size by 50%. Typical barcode specs require module sizes to be within 5-10 pecent of nominal.
For this reason, bwip-js uses a constant module size so the resulting image is as
large as possible, without exceeding the requested width or height.
The design causes the rendered barcodes to grow in "quantums". An image will be
X-pixels wide with a module with of 2px, and Y-pixels wide with a module width of 3px,
and can not vary between those two sizes.
With bwip-js, the scale parameters can be thought of as requesting a particular module
width. scale=1 maps to a 1px module. scale=2 is a 2px module. Etc.
When you specify width, you are effectively changing the scale of the final image.
Internally, bwip-js calcuates the requested width x scale, then divides
by the number of modules the symbol requires. The floor of that value is the
module width (scale) of the rendered barcode.
To use in a browser without a bundler, add the following to the head of your page:
<script type="text/javascript" src="url-path-to/bwip-js/dist/bwip-js-min.js"></script>
While developing your project, you may want to use dist/bwip-js.js to get better stack
traces.
If you are using RequireJS or a common-js bundling utility, the bwip-js scripts are
structured as UMDs and should work with your environment.
The scripts adds a single bwipjs global object. To draw a barcode to a canvas:
try {
// The return value is the canvas element
let canvas = bwipjs.toCanvas('mycanvas', {
bcid: 'code128', // Barcode type
text: '0123456789', // Text to encode
scale: 3, // 3x scaling factor
height: 10, // Bar height, in millimeters
includetext: true, // Show human-readable text
textxalign: 'center', // Always good to set this
});
} catch (e) {
// `e` may be a string or Error object
}
The bwipjs.toCanvas() method takes two parameters:
id string or the actual
canvas element. The rendering will automatically resize the canvas to match the
barcode image.On return from toCanvas(), the barcode image will be fully rendered to the canvas.
If you would prefer to display the barcode using an <img> tag or with CSS background-image,
pass in a detached or hidden canvas, and use the canvas method
HTMLCanvasElement.toDataURL
to get a data URL. For example:
let canvas = document.createElement('canvas');
try {
bwipjs.toCanvas(canvas, options);
document.getElementById('my-img').src = canvas.toDataURL('image/png');
} catch (e) {
// `e` may be a string or Error object
}
The ESM provides the same API as the standard browser module using:
import bwipjs from 'bwip-js'; // If using the main package import
// or
import bwipjs from '@bwip-js/browser'; // Platform-specific package import
// ... identical bwipjs.toCanvas() interface as above ...
The ESM also facilitates bundler tree shaking by providing the individual encoders as named exports.
Each exported encoder functions identically to bwipjs.toCanvas().
The exported names are the same as the bcid names, with the caveat that dashes - are replaced with
underscores _. For example, to import the gs1-128 encoder, you would use:
import { gs1_128 } from 'bwip-js';
// or
import { gs1_128 } from '@bwipjs/browser';
try {
gs1_128('my-canvas', options);
} catch (e) {
// `e` may be a string or Error object
}
The online barcode API is implemented as a Node.js application. See the Online Barcode API for details on how the URL query parameters must be structured.
A working, minimal example of how to use the request handler can be found in
server.js:
// Simple HTTP server that renders barcode images using bwip-js.
const http = require('http');
const bwipjs = require('bwip-js');
// This shows how to load the Inconsolata font, supplied with the bwip-js distribution.
// The path to your fonts will be different.
//bwipjs.loadFont('Inconsolata', 100,
// require('fs').readFileSync('./fonts/Inconsolata.otf', 'binary'));
http.createServer(function(req, res) {
// If the url does not begin /?bcid= then 404. Otherwise, we end up
// returning 400 on requests like favicon.ico.
if (req.url.indexOf('/?bcid=') != 0) {
res.writeHead(404, { 'Content-Type':'text/plain' });
res.end('BWIPJS: Unknown request format.', 'utf8');
} else {
bwipjs.request(req, res); // Executes asynchronously
}
}).listen(3030);
If you run the above code on your local machine, you can test with the following URL:
http://localhost:3030/?bcid=isbn&text=978-1-56581-231-4+52250&includetext&guardwhitespace
The bwip-js request handler only operates on the URL query parameters and ignores all path information. Your application is free to structure the URL path as needed to implement the desired HTTP request routing.
You can use bwip-js to generate PNG images directly.
const bwipjs = require('bwip-js');
bwipjs.toBuffer({
bcid: 'code128', // Barcode type
text: '0123456789', // Text to encode
scale: 3, // 3x scaling factor
height: 10, // Bar height, in millimeters
includetext: true, // Show human-readable text
textxalign: 'center', // Always good to set this
}, function (err, png) {
if (err) {
// `err` may be a string or Error object
} else {
// `png` is a Buffer
// png.length : PNG file length
// png.readUInt32BE(16) : PNG image width
// png.readUInt32BE(20) : PNG image height
}
});
If you would prefer to work with Promises, omit the callback function and
toBuffer() will return a Promise:
bwipjs.toBuffer({
bcid: 'code128', // Barcode type
text: '0123456789', // Text to encode
scale: 3, // 3x scaling factor
height: 10, // Bar height, in millimeters
includetext: true, // Show human-readable text
textxalign: 'center', // Always good to set this
})
.then(png => {
// `png` is a Buffer as in the example above
})
.catch(err => {
// `err` may be a string or Error object
});
The ESM provides the same API as require('bwip-js') using:
import bwipjs from 'bwip-js'; // If using the main package import
// or
import bwipjs from '@bwip-js/node'; // Platform-specific package import
// ... identical to the examples above ...
The ESM also facilitates bundler tree-shaking by providing the individual encoders as named exports. Each exported encoder functions identically to bwipjs.toBuffer().
The exported names are the same as the bcid names, with the caveat that dashes - are replaced with underscores _. For example, to import the gs1-128 encoder, you would use:
import { gs1_128 } from 'bwip-js';
// or
import { gs1_128 } from '@bwip-js/node';
try {
let buf = await gs1_128(options);
} catch (e) {
// `e` may be a string or Error object
}
When named encoders are called, the bcid value in the options object is ignored.
The easiest way to generate an SVG barcode image is with the toSVG() method. It takes
the same options object as the other rendering methods.
The method is synchronous.
let svg = bwipjs.toSVG({
bcid: 'code128', // Barcode type
text: '0123456789', // Text to encode
height: 12, // Bar height, in millimeters
includetext: true, // Show human-readable text
textxalign: 'center', // Always good to set this
textcolor: 'ff0000', // Red text
});
The return value from toSVG() is a string containing a fully qualified SVG definition,
including a viewBox attribute that defines the natural width and height of the image, in pixels.
<svg viewBox="0 0 242 200" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
...
</svg>
The viewBox will always have origin 0 0.
To display in an HTML page, the following should provide a good start:
let [ , width, height ] = /viewBox="0 0 (\d+) (\d+)"/.exec(svg);
let span = document.createElement('span');
span.style.display = 'inline-block';
span.style.width = width + 'px';
span.style.height = height + 'px';
span.innerHTML = svg;
document.body.appendChild(span);
The toSVG() method links to all BWIPP encoders, so it cannot be used with
tree-shaking. To reduce bundled size, you can import only the barcode types
you need, along with the built-in SVG drawing interface.
import { qrcode, drawingSVG } from 'bwip-js';
// or <platform> one of : browser, node, react-native, generic
import { qrcode, drawingSVG } from '@bwip-js/<platform>';
// drawingSVG() returns a bwip-js drawing object.
let svg = qrcode(options, drawingSVG());
The following is a minimal example of bwip-js in a React app.
It is based on the default App.js file generated by create-react-app.
import React, { Component } from 'react';
import logo from './logo.svg';
import './App.css';
import bwipjs from 'bwip-js'; // If using the main package import
// or
import bwipjs from '@bwip-js/browser'; // Plaform-specific package import
class App extends Component {
componentDidMount() {
try {
// The return value is the canvas element
let canvas = bwipjs.toCanvas('mycanvas', {
bcid: 'code128', // Barcode type
text: '0123456789', // Text to encode
scale: 3, // 3x scaling factor
height: 10, // Bar height, in millimeters
includetext: true, // Show human-readable text
textxalign: 'center', // Always good to set this
});
} catch (e) {
// `e` may be a string or Error object
}
}
render() {
return (
<div className="App">
<div className="App-header">
<img src={logo} className="App-logo" alt="logo" />
<h2>Welcome to React</h2>
</div>
<canvas id="mycanvas"></canvas>
</div>
);
}
}
export default App;
See the Browser Usage section for details on the toCanvas() method.
See the ES6 Browser Module Usage section for details on importing encoders directly.
React-native has considerable legacy build environments that are not compatible with the modern exports map in package.json. For this reason, it is recommended to install the react-native package @bwip-js/react-native.
The react-native module provides a specialized version of the toBuffer() method,
called toDataURL(). The return value is an object with the following properties:
height : The height of the image, in pixels.width : The width of the image, in pixels.uri : A string containing the data URL for the image.The returned object is designed to be used with the <Image> component:
import React from 'react';
import bwipjs from '@bwip-js/react-native';
const BarCode = (options) => {
let img = null;
try {
img = await bwipjs.toDataURL(options);
} catch (e) {
// `e` may be a string or Error object
}
return (
<Image
style={{ height:img.height, width:img.width }}
source={{ uri:img.uri }}
/>
);
};
The bwip-js exports also facilitate bundler tree-shaking by providing the individual encoders as named exports. Each exported encoder functions identically to bwipjs.toDataURL().
The exported names are the same as the bcid names, with the caveat that dashes - are replaced with underscores _. For example, to import the gs1-128 encoder, you would use:
import { gs1_128 } from '@bwip-js/react-native';
try {
let buf = await gs1_128(options);
} catch (e) {
// `e` may be a string or Error object
}
When named encoders are called, the bcid value in the options object is ignored.
With electron, you have the choice to use either the node-specific or browser-specific package. It is not recommended to use the main bwip-js package as developers have reported issues with how the bundler interacts with the package exports.
This is an example index.html file for a basic, single window app, using the node-js package:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Hello World!</title>
</head>
<body>
Node.js <script>document.write(process.versions.node)</script>,
Chromium <script>document.write(process.versions.chrome)</script>,
Electron <script>document.write(process.versions.electron)</script>,
bwip-js <script>document.write(bwipjs.BWIPJS_VERSION)</script>,
and BWIPP <script>document.write(bwipjs.BWIPP_VERSION)</script>.
<br><br><img id="myimg">
<pre id="output"></pre>
</body>
<script>
var bwipjs = require('@bwip-js/node');
bwipjs.toBuffer({ bcid:'qrcode', text:'0123456789' }, function (err, png) {
if (err) {
document.getElementById('output').textContent = err;
} else {
document.getElementById('myimg').src = 'data:image/png;base64,' +
png.toString('base64');
}
});
</script>
</html>
bwip-js can be used as a command line tool when installed globally:
$ npm install -g bwip-js
$ bwip-js
Usage: bwip-js symbol-name text [options...] file-name
bwip-js --bcid=symbol-name --text=text [options...] file-name
Example:
bwip-js code128 012345678 includetext textcolor=ff0000 my-code128.png
file-name must be type: .png or .svg
Try 'bwip-js --help' for more information.
Try 'bwip-js --symbols' for a list of supported barcode symbols.
To use a custom font with the command line utility, use the --loadfont option. It
takes one of three formats:
--loadfont=font-name,y-mult,x-mult,path-to-font-file
--loadfont=font-name,size-mult,path-to-font-file
--loadfont=font-name,path-to-font-file
For example:
$ bwip-js code128 12345678 includetext textfont=CONS textxalign=center \
loadfont=CONS,250,100,../fonts/Inconsolata.otf /tmp/code128.png
The above demonstrates how to maniplulate the font metrics so the characters appear tall and narrow.
demo.html located in the root bwip-js directory is a full featured demonstation
of bwip-js barcode rendering. It uses bwip-js' built-in graphics to draw to a canvas.
The images produced will match pixel-for-pixel with the images produced by the same
nodejs usage.
There are example html and node apps provided with the project including how to write your own drawing interface, generating SVG barcode images, and adding scalable barcodes to a pdfkit document.
See the examples README for more details.
FAQs
JavaScript barcode generator supporting over 100 types and standards.
The npm package bwip-js receives a total of 81,619 weekly downloads. As such, bwip-js popularity was classified as popular.
We found that bwip-js demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 0 open source maintainers collaborating on the project.
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