The Universal Product Code was the first bar code symbology widely adopted. Its birth is usually set at April 3, 1973, when the grocery industry formally established UPC as the standard bar code symbology for product marking. Foreign interest in UPC led to the adoption of the EAN code format, similar to UPC, in December 1976. Your barcode comes as an attachment to an email which is sent to you after making your purchase. The attached file will be named after the first 11 digits of your barcode .zip.
First save this attachment to your hard drive, then double click the file and unzip the file. If you do not have an application for unzipping files you can download one from here
http://www.winzip.com. You do not have to purchase it, the demo version will work fine.
Once you have unzipped your file you will have one bitmap image file named .bmp and one vector image named .eps, you can import these into your graphics design program. Once you have opened one of the files with your graphics file you will need to rescale it. You can also crop the top portion of the bars.
The minimum size that your barcode should be is 1.25 inches wide by .5 inches high at 300 dpi, be sure your graphics file are set to at least 300 dpi.
Most applications allow you to rescale your placed image.
In adobe photo shop you would open your barcode .bmp, copy and paste it into a new layer on your graphics layout.
Then select from the 'Edit' menu:
Edit-> Transform-> Scale
Hold down the SHIFT key (VERY IMPORTANT) while you drag the corner of the boundary box to scale the barcode proportionately then press enter to complete your scaling.
You can then use the marquee tool to select any numbers at the top of your barcode and even the top portion of the bars and delete this portion.
Just remember the minimum size that your barcode should be is 1.25 inches wide by .5 inches high.
