Creating barcodes in excel

Using Excel as a barcode formulator and to translate numbers and letters into barcodes can aid in your business’s inventory management and barcode management processes. Learn how to create barcodes in Excel with this step-by-step guide.

Included on this page, you’ll learn how to create a barcode in Excel step-by-step, how to generate random barcodes, types of barcodes and barcode fonts, and which versions of Excel support barcode creation.

Barcode allows you to show data in a visual format that can easily be read by machines.

I am sure you have seen barcodes hundreds of times on products, including from grocery to clothing.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to add a barcode font in Excel so that you can insert barcodes in your worksheet.

Something as shown below:

Excel allows you to format cells as barcodes, which can be extremely useful, especially in the inventory management.

This way, you can create a product catalog with all barcodes, print product UPC codes, or track items easily.

While there is no in-built way in Excel to convert values to barcodes, you can easily do that using the Barcode font.

Let’s see how to so this.

Download and Install the Code 39 Barcode Font

In order to be able to use barcodes in Excel, you need to download a barcode font and install it first.

The most frequently used font is Code 39, and we will use it in examples.

You can download the Code 39 font from various free sites for fonts downloading. We did it from Dafont (https://www.dafont.com/search.php?q=code+39).

Just click on the Download button next to the Code 39 font.

The font will be downloaded in a ZIP folder in your Downloads folder (or wherever you download your files), as a .TTF file (TrueType font).

Below are the steps to install the Barcode font on your system so it’s also available in Excel:

1. Double-click the ZIP folder of the Code 39 font (that you downloaded from the above link)
2. Double-click the .TTF file (when you open a file, you can see the preview of the font)
3. Click on Install. This will install the font on your system
4. Close the dilaog box

Now, the font is installed on your computer and you can use it in applications such as MS Excel.

In case you already have a file open, you should save and then reopen it to be able to see it in the barcode font.

If you’re wondering why this is called Code39, that’s because it generates a barcode that has five bars and four spaces (so a total of 9). And three of these nine bars would have more width, hence the 3 in 39.

Creating Barcodes in Excel

Now that the barcode font is installed on your system, let’s see how to use it to create barcodes in Excel.

Converting Cell Format to Text

Before I show you how to convert numbers or alphanumeric characters into barcode, you need to know an important thing.

The cells that has the numbers (that you want to convert to barcodes) need to be in the text format.

Let me explain why this is important.

Excel, in its bid to be as helpful as possible, does some automatic number formatting by default. For example, if you enter 0001 in a cell, it will be converted into 1 (as Excel thinks the leading zeroes are useless).

Or if you enter a large number, say 123456789876, Excel will change it to 1.23457E+11.

But when you’re generating barcodes, you need the text or the number as is. You don’t want Excel to change it

So by converting cells format to text, you ensure that the numbers don’t get truncated or changed by Excel.

IMPORTANT: You need to change the cell format before putting the numbers into the cells for which you want the barcode. So make the cell format Text first, and then enter the numbers.

Here is how you can change the cell format to Text

1. Select cells where you plan to have the numbers that you would convert to barcodes. In my example, I will select column A
2. Click on General (Number Format) in the Number part of the Home tab
3. Choose ‘Text’

Once you have formatted the cells, you can enter the values that needs to be converted to Barcodes.

In case you’re copying this data from somewhere, make sure to paste it as values only (so it doesn’t mess up our Text formatting).

Enter the Values for Barcodes

Now that you have the column formatted as Text, you can enter the values that you converted to barcodes.

But I don’t want to convert the values to barcodes. Instead, I would like to have the value as is and it’s barcode in the adjacent cell.

For this, I will have to have the same values in the adjacent column as well.

This can be done easily.

Below are the steps to copy values from column A to column B.

1. In the cell B2, enter: =A2;
2. Drag the formula down until the last populated cell in column A (A6).

Don’t worry about the formatting on column B. Excel will make sure the formatting is same as that of cells in column A.

Formatting the Values to Convert into Barcodes

You can now format the values in column B as barcodes (font Code 39).

Below are the steps to do this:

1. Select all cells with values in column B
2. Click on the Font menu in the Home tab
3. Choose Code39

After this, you get all the values in column B formatted as barcodes. You can also increase the font size in order to make them more visible.

1. Click on the font size menu in the Home tab
2. Choose (for example) 26

As a result, you get a barcode for each text in column A.

In our example, the barcode in column B is dynamic, which means that if the value in column A changes, the barcode would automatically update. In case you don’t want this, you can convert the formula in column B to values.

Note that when you install the font on your system, it doesn’t work just in Excel. It would also work on other office applications such as MS Word and MS PowerPoint.

Different Types of Barcodes

Code 39 is one of the easiest barcode font to use and includes both numbers and letters.

This type displays each character as five bars and four spaces, while three bars are wider than the others. That’s why it got the name 39.

Apart from this type, you probably heard of other barcodes, such as Code 128 (similar to 39, usually used for shipping), or UPC/EAN (used for product barcodes).

You can also install and use other barcodes in Excel similar to Code 39.

If you’re the curious type, here is some more information on different types of barcodes.

• Code 128: It is generally used for shipping and supply chain labels. In comparison with Code 39, the barcodes of Code 128 are denser and are usually used for container and pallet levels in the supply chain. It can also use the full ASCII character set, which Code39 can only use alphanumeric characters.  
• UPC/EAN: UPC stands for Universal Product Code, EAN for European Article Numbering. This is a widely used barcode that can be found in items in-store and at the point of sale. The character set in UPC is restricted to 12 characters only. 
• UPC-E: This is a simpler version of UPC, which was developed for smaller packages where the full 12 characters barcode of UPC won’t fit. This is restricted to 6 digits, where the leading and trailing zeroes are omitted.
• QR: QR stands for Quick Response and is used to open a website or app when you scan it with a mobile phone camera. You will often find this as a printed code where you can use it to make payments or avail discounts. 
• I2of5: It stands for (Interleaved 2 of 5), where 2 out of every five bars are wide. It is a high-density barcode that supports numeric characters. It is a two-row barcode that’s used on 35 mm film rolls, and to label cartons.
• Postnet: It stands for Postal Numeric Encoding Technique and was used by the U.S. Postal Service. It can encode numeric characters only. 
• Intelligent Mail: This one is currently used by the U.S. Postal Service. It encodes up to 65 characters. Apart from the width of the bars and spaces between them, even the height and vertical location of these bars can be read and converted into information. It uses numeric characters.

Generating Random Barcode in Excel

Now that you know how to easily install the barcode font and use it to create barcodes from numbers and alphanumeric text strings, you can also use Excel to create random barcodes.

Suppose you want to generate a random list of 20 barcodes. You can do that using the RANDBETWEEN formula, where you specify the lower and the upper limit and it will give you random numbers between these two values.

For example, if you want to generate random numbers between 1 and 100, you can use the formula RANDBETWEEN(1,100) and enter it into 20 cells to get 20 random values.

Below are the steps to generate random barcodes:

• In a cell, enter the formula =RANDBETWEEN(1,100)
• Copy the formula and paste it for 20 cells (or however number of random barcodes you want)
• Copy the entire range of cells that have these random numbers, and copy it (use Control + C or right-click and then click on Copy)
• With the cells selected, right-click and then click on the Paste as Values icon

The above steps would generate a list of 20 random numbers and then we have converted these to values (as RANDBETWEEN is a volatile formula and would other keep on updating).

Note that this can be done only with numbers. It’s a bit harder to generate random alphanumeric strings.

Now that you have random numbers, you can simply select these and apply the barcode formatting to to.

To do this:

1. Select the cells that have the numbers
2. Click the Home tab
3. Select Code39 as the font

In case you want the numbers in a separate column and the barcodes in a separate column, you can first copy the numbers in the adjacent column and then apply the barcode font to it.

Third-Party Tools and Excel Barcode Add-Ins

While using the Excel barcode font technique works fine, there are other ways you can generate barcodes and then use in Excel.

There are some decent web based tools as well as applications that you can check out.

Some of the prominent bar codes generators include:

• Barcode.tec
• Cognex
• POSGuys
• Bartender Software

So this is how you can use the Code 39 font to easily generate barcodes in Excel.

I hope you found this tutorial useful,

Other Excel tutorials you may also like:

• How to Copy Formatting In Excel
• How to Set the Default Font in Excel (Windows and Mac)
• How To Set Column Width in Inches (or Centimeters) in Excel?
• How to Add Cell Borders in Excel
• What does Pound/Hash Symbol (####) Mean in Excel?
• How to Change Theme Colors in Excel?

See all How-To Articles

This tutorial demonstrates how to create barcodes in Excel and Google Sheets.

Add Barcode Font in Excel

In Excel, you can format cells as barcodes which can be very useful, especially in inventory management. For example, you can create a product catalog with all barcodes, print product UPC codes, or track items easily. To use barcodes in Excel, you need a barcode font installed. Code 39 is the most frequently used font. To download it, follow these steps:

1. You can download Code 39 from several sources. Try this one.
2. After opening this link, choose Code 39 on the page and click the Download button.

1. The font is downloaded as a ZIP folder to your Downloads. Unzip it to get the TTF (true to font) file.

1. Then, double-click on the TTF file. You can see a preview of the font.

1. To install the barcode font, in the Font Preview window, click on Install.

As a result, the barcode font is installed on your computer. To see it listed in your fonts, you may need to reopen Excel.

Create Barcodes in Excel

1. Once you have a barcode font installed, you are ready to create barcodes from a list of numbers. For example, see the list below in Column A. Let’s create barcodes from those numbers in Column B. First, be sure that all values from Column A are formatted as text, in order to avoid numbers being condensed.

1. To format values from Column A, select those cells and in the Ribbon, go to Home > Number. Select Text from the drop-down list.
   (If you skip this step, Excel omits leading zeros, or shortens large numbers.)

1. Now, copy the values from Column A to Column B. To do that, in cell B2 enter =A2 and then, drag the formula down to the last populated cell in the column (B6).

1. Then, select all cells with values in Column B (B2:B6) and in the Ribbon, go to Home > Font. Select Code 39 from the drop-down list.

1. Now all values in Column B are formatted as barcodes. Make barcodes more visible by increasing the font size.

You may already have the values you need for your barcodes. If not, consider using the RAND Function or Rnd in VBA to generate random numbers. Or, start with a string of numbers at the desired length and generate all permutations.

Create Barcodes in Google Sheets

In Google Sheets, you can create barcodes exactly the same way. Once you install the font, it’s also available in Google Sheets under the name Libre Barcode 39.

We begin our journey by entering three values into our spreadsheet:

• 1 digit for Type
• 5 digits for Manufacturer
• 5 digits for Product

Upon entering the above values, the barcode is generated.

Like any good magic trick, it looks complex but it’s really quite simple once you understand it.

(click any of the following images for a larger view)

Main Parts of a Barcode

The Guards

The highlighted areas below are known as the “guards”.  These are fixed in design and do not change with different products.  The guards serve as borders for the scanner to know where the start and endpoints of the relevant information are located.

Type of Barcode

The left-most value defines the type of barcode.

The values seen here are defined as:

• 0 = Standard
• 2 = Weighed Items
• 3 = Pharmacy
• 5 = Coupons

Manufacturer Code

The left-set of 5 digits represent the manufacturer code.

Product Code

The right-set of 5 digits represent the product code.

Modulo Check Character

The right-most value is automatically generated.  This is known as the Modulo Check Character.

This value is generated using the formula below.

3 × (1 + 3 + 5 + 7 + 9 + 11) + (2 + 4 + 6 + 8 + 10)

The values in the parentheses are the digit positions for the 11 numbers as read from left to right.

Using the above example, the formula would appear as follows:

3 × (5 + 0 + 6 + 6 + 0 + 1) + (9 + 0 + 7 + 5 + 1)

This would evaluate to 76.

We then subtract that value from the next highest multiple of 10, in this case, 80, giving us a value of 4.

80 – 76 = 4

Generating the Black Bars

The black lines are generated from the two sets of numbers that define the manufacturer and the product.

If we look closely, we can see that each number is defined by 7 thin bars (we’ll call them “tracks”.)

Each of the 7 “tracks” shadings is defined by a corresponding 0 (zero) or 1 in that track.  If the track is 1, the track is filled with the color black.  If the track is 0, then the track is left white.

The table below lists the combinations of 1’s and 0’s for the values of 0 through 9.  There is a separate set of code combinations for the left side (manufacturer) and the right side (product).

If you look closely, you’ll notice that the right side of 1’s and 0’s as an inversion of the left side of 1’s and 0’s.

Returning to our example from above; a value of 9 on the left side (manufacturer) is represented by the 0/1 sequence of 0001011.

The Complete Package

The below image (courtesy of In One Lesson entitled “How Barcodes Work”) shows how all of the components fit together.

Creating the Barcodes in Excel

Let’s break the worksheet into its components to see exactly which Excel features control which parts of the barcode result.

Named Ranges

If we select the leftmost value (the barcode type), we see that the cell is referencing a named range called “typeNumber” (cell B3).

The manufacturer code (left set of 5 digits) has each value contained in a single, merged cell.  Each cell is referencing a named range called “leftNumber” (cell B5).

The product code (right set of 5 digits) has each value contained in a single, merged cell.  Each cell is referencing a named range called “rightNumber” (cell B7).

Text Functions

Each of the values in the manufacturer’s code is using a text function to extract a single character from the 5-digit value stored in “leftNumber”.

These functions are as follows (reading from left to right):

• Position 1 – LEFT(leftNumber)
• Position 2 – MID(leftNumber, 2, 1)
• Position 3 – MID(leftNumber, 3, 1)
• Position 4 – MID(leftNumber, 3, 1)
• Position 5 – RIGHT(leftNumber)

Each of the values in the product’s code is using a text function to extract a single character from the 5-digit value stored in “rightNumber”.

These functions are as follows (reading from left to right):

• Position 1 – LEFT(rightNumber)
• Position 2 – MID(rightNumber, 2, 1)
• Position 3 – MID(rightNumber, 3, 1)
• Position 4 – MID(rightNumber, 3, 1)
• Position 5 – RIGHT(rightNumber)

Modulo Check Character Calculation

The Modulo Check Character is referencing a named range called “moduloCheck” (cell B9).  These rows are hidden, so you’ll need to unhide the rows to see the “moduloCheck” cell and its related formula.

The formula behind the modulo check is the same as the one stated earlier:

3 × (1 + 3 + 5 + 7 + 9 + 11) + (2 + 4 + 6 + 8 + 10)

(Remember – the numbers in the parentheses represent number positions as read from left to right)

When translated into Excel, the formula looks like so…

=MOD(10 - MOD((3 * (B3 + MID(B5, 2, 1) + MID(B5, 4, 1) + LEFT(B7) + MID(B7, 3, 1) + RIGHT(B7)) + (LEFT(B5) + MID(B5, 3, 1) + RIGHT(B5) + MID(B7, 2, 1) + MID(B7, 4, 1))), 10), 10)

I know, it looks insane, but if you study it closely it’s performing the following steps:

1. Individual number extractions using the LEFT, MID, and RIGHT functions
2. Add the left 5 and right 5 values
3. Multiply the left result by 3
4. Add the result to the right side
5. Use a modulo function to divide the result by 10 and retain only the remainder
6. Subtract the result from 10
7. Use a modulo function to divide the result by 10 and retain only the remainder

The reason for the second modulo function is to account for results where the remainder would be zero.  If that occurs, Step 6 would be 10 – 0 which results in 10, and we can’t return a double-digit result to the Modulo Check Character position.

Generating the Black Bars (Conditional Formatting)

Notice that all the columns that contain the visualization of the barcode are very narrow.

A cell in this range will either be black or white.  The color is predicated on the presence of a 1 (for black) or a 0 (for white).

A Conditional Formatting rule has been set to have a cell “look” at its respective value and set the cell to black if a 1 is present or white if a 0 is present.  If we select cell H12 and select Home (tab) -> Styles (group) -> Conditional Formatting -> Manage Rules, we see the rules for H12 and range of examination for the rest of the barcode color cells.

The alteration of the 1’s and 0’s is controlled by VBA code that we will examine in just a moment.

Since the Left, Right, and Center guards are fixed, those are manually colored and are not dependent on Conditional Formatting.

A Closer Look

Examining the first few digits of our barcode (5 90067 65011 4), we can consult the binary conversion chart from earlier and note the following binary patterns:

• 5 = 0110001
• 9 = 0001011
• 0 = 0001101
• 6 = 0101111

The 1/0 patterns can be seen in the sets of 7 below.

Peeking Behind the Curtain (a Bit of VBA Automation)

Decoding the user-entered values into sets of 1’s and 0’s is handled by some clever VBA code.

To see the code, press the key combination ALT-F11, then double-click the “Module 1” module sheet in the Project Explorer windows (left).

If you are interested in learning VBA, consider our VBA course titled “Unlock Excel VBA & Excel Macros”.

Although we won’t be dissecting this code line for line, let’s generalize the major steps.

Generating the Binary Code for the Left and Right Sets of Numbers

The code begins by creating 20 variables, 10 for the left set of numbers 1 through 9, and 10 for the right set of numbers 1 through 9.

Each of the variables is then populated with a set of 7 1/0 combinations that correspond to our number-to-binary table from earlier.

Converting the Numbers to Binary

Next, a loop routine parses each of the user-entered values to determine its value of 0 to 9.  A Select Case statement will pick the associated array of 1’s and 0’s from the previous step and store the results in a new memory array.

This is done for the left set of values (manufacturer), then again for the right set of values (product).

Once the final arrays have been assembled, those arrays are copied to the worksheet.  These are discovered by virtue of Named Ranges called “leftArray” and “rightArray”.

The bars height is achieved by stretching the height of the row containing the 1’s and 0’s.

Adding a Touch of Dynamism

(that’s a fancy word)

Because we want the barcode to update when new values are entered for the type/manufacturer/product cells, a bit of code is entered to detect when one of these three cells have been changed.

This code has two special properties:

• The code is stored on the codesheet for the sheet holding the visualization named “Barcode”.
• The code is placed in a special type of procedure called an Event-Driven Procedure; in this case, an event called Worksheet_Change.

Each line monitors one of the three entry cells as named “typeNumber”, “leftNumber”, and “rightNumber”.  If an update to any of these three cells is detected, the CreateBarcode subprocedure is called (located on the previously examined “Module 1” sheet) and executed.

A Bit of Polish with Some Data Validation and VBA Error Checking

Data Validation

To ensure a user selects only 1 of the valid 4 Type codes, and that the user always enters exactly 5 numbers for the manufacturer code and product code, Data Validation has been applied to the three data entry cells.

For the Type cell (B3), a validation List allowing the numbers 0, 2, 3, or 5 has been applied.

For the Manufacturer and Product cells (B5 and B7 respectively), a Text Length requirement of exactly 5 characters has been applied.

Keep in mind, this would allow for letters and punctuation to be entered by the user, effectively sending this down the hole of failure.

For more robust data validation, we could create a custom validation formula like the following to restrict only numbers and exactly 5 of those numbers.

For Manufacturer (cell B5):

=AND(LEN(leftNumber) = 5, ISNUMBER(VALUE(leftNumber)))

For Product (cell B7):

=AND(LEN(rightNumber) = 5, ISNUMBER(VALUE(rightNumber)))

VBA Error Checking

If an error were to be encountered during execution of the “CreateBarcode” subprocedure, we can include an error handling routine to inform the user than an error has occurred and to check their entered values.

We can place an instruction directly after our variable declarations to tell the system to skip to the end of the code and execute the error-handling routine in the event of an error.

If the error-handling routine is invoked, we can display a message box informing the user of some malfunction and to let them try a new code set.

The error would appear as follows.

Download Different Versions of the Excel Barcode Generator

Thanks to our community members we have different versions you can download:

Download Pete’s original version with Excel VBA HERE.

Barcode generator with INDEX & MATCH from Max Vitzliputzli: Download HERE.

Barcodes with VLOOKUP from David Barahona: Download HERE.

and finally barcodes in Excel with OFFSET from Boko Moko: Download HERE.

MANY THANKS to our contributors for sharing their versions and inspiring us to learn from one another.