QRix
The short retail barcode for packs too small to carry a full EAN-13 — chewing gum, cosmetics, single-serve items.
Short 8-digit retail code for small packages.
Uses the format, color and size selected above — one PNG per line, zipped.
EAN-8 exists for one reason: some packages are physically too small to carry an EAN-13 without the barcode swallowing the design. Eight digits — a two- or three-digit GS1 prefix, a short item reference and a modulo-10 check digit — compress into a symbol roughly two-thirds the width of its bigger sibling. The important thing to understand is that an EAN-8 number is not derived from your EAN-13 by truncating it. It is allocated separately by GS1 from a deliberately limited pool, because the short number space is a genuinely scarce global resource. GS1 member organisations therefore grant EAN-8 numbers case by case and usually ask you to demonstrate that the product really cannot accommodate an EAN-13, even at the minimum permitted eighty percent scale. If your packaging has the room, use EAN-13; keep EAN-8 for the cases where it truly does not.
Chewing gum, sweets and single-serve packs
Cosmetics and sample sizes
Cigarette and tobacco packaging
Small hardware and stationery items
Any retail pack where EAN-13 will not fit
Only when the package is genuinely too small for an EAN-13 at its minimum permitted size. GS1 treats short numbers as a scarce resource and expects EAN-13 wherever it fits.
No. EAN-8 numbers are issued independently by GS1 from a separate pool. Truncating an EAN-13 produces a number that belongs to someone else or to nobody.
Seven. The eighth is a modulo-10 check digit calculated from them, which this generator appends for you.
Yes — every point-of-sale scanner built for EAN-13 also reads EAN-8; it is part of the same GS1 retail family.
Nominal EAN-8 is 26.73 by 21.64 mm. As with EAN-13, scale proportionally and never crop the quiet zones on either side.
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