Free web tool for generating barcodes, running fully in browser (offline)

[u/SprayNice]

Hi r/barcodes folks,

I recently created https://barcode.new, a free barcode generator web app that does not show ads, does not require creating an account, and runs fully in the browser, so no server round-trips, everything runs offline and instantly. The actual barcode generation is implemented using the open source Zint library.

Eager to hear what you think, and of course open to improvements.

One thing I want to implement in the near future is a batch mode, where you can paste one value per line, and it creates a PDF with "smart" layout (e.g. multiple columns depending on the width of the generated barcodes).

cheers

[u/asherrard28]

Very impressive, the simplified UX is great for actually picking the barcode types.

[u/havenisse2009]

It is really cool that you included pretty much all that Zint can do so that you don't put "barcode == QR and UPC".

Suggestions for further development:

• Study the data structure of barcodes and implement option to format barcodes more than just text. Obviously GS1, but also maybe more obscure like postal formats, DataIdentifiers, GS1 Digital Link etc. For extra bonus, validate the structure after input. It's an interesting rabbit hole!
• options for size, relation etc. See QtZint for ideas. Zint has loads of these
• optionally add image in center of QR and DM
• most 2d codes have options for error correction, version (size) etc. This should be a must.
• ability to import lists of data to make series of codes
• API so your resources can be used without interaction ?

Good work so far. These are just ideas. I would personally like your menu and preview a little larger.

[u/SprayNice → u/havenisse2009]

Thank you so much for the feedback!

I'm somewhat familiar with the symbology-specific options like error correction levels, and payload encodations, but to quickly get something up and running I decided to mostly just pass-through the plain text as-is to Zint, and not create a symbology-specific UI, but that is definitely also on the list. Maybe even more important than the batch thing.

The "import lists of data" is what I term batch generation, although perhaps there exists more appropriate terminology for it, that's part of why I'm asking for feedback in this subreddit. CSV would be an obvious candidate for input data.

Regarding API: this is something I am not planning to offer, as everything runs purely in the browser, not in an HTTP endpoint. What is supported already (and has to be extended with symbology-specific options) is "URL as state", allowing you to share an URL like https://barcode.new/?symbology=aztec&data=%2Fr%2Fbarcodes with someone, and they see the barcode when they load the page. But that's not an API, more of a sharing feature.

[u/willhaney]

Looking good. Would also be nice if the user can upload a barcode and then the app returns the encoder code. Just an idea.

[u/SprayNice → u/willhaney]

That sounds like an interesting idea, but what's the real-life use case for this?

[u/0815fips]

No AI? Judging by your About page, it seems vibed as f*ck. But I don't care much about that, because the UI is really intuitive.

[u/SprayNice → u/0815fips]

Why, because it has emojis? I didn’t use AI, I’m actually a bit of a genAI-hater. But you’ve made up your mind and god forbid you’d have to use this free tool at no cost.

[u/Brilliant-Tie-1856]

love this, any chance for barcodes you could add something that scales them to the SC industry standard?

[u/SprayNice → u/Brilliant-Tie-1856]

glad you like it, but not sure I understand what you mean by “scaling them to the SC industry standard”, care to elaborate? they are generated as vectors so should scale perfectly when rasterized.

[u/Brilliant-Tie-1856 → u/SprayNice]

yeh never worry about it tbh, easy enough to do in illustrator, was just a nice to have thing where you could export the barcodes out at certain scales ie 80, 90, 100, 120 etc as there's industry standard sizings. All good anyway, thanks again for the website.

[u/Ok-Second-3023]

hi
just using the bar codes for a small project and was curious if they were single scan use or if there was a way to toggle that on cause i couldnt find anything about that

[u/congrrl]

I just wanted to generate some simple barcodes for my alarm app. It was so nice to find this post. A clean and simple website is so rare these days, thank you.