How to use it
- Type or paste the text to encode.
- Keep it as short as practical. Fewer rows scan faster.
- Download SVG/PDF or PNG.
Where you see PDF417
PDF417 (Portable Data File) appears on the back of US and Canadian driver's licences, many airline boarding passes, shipping and customs documents, and invoices that need to carry structured data. Despite the name it has nothing to do with PDF files. It was created in 1991, before Adobe's format became famous.
How it works
Each row is a short barcode with start and stop patterns. Rows are stacked, and Reed–Solomon error correction spreads redundancy across them, so a damaged label often still decodes. Most laser scanners can read PDF417 if they move across it, and all camera scanners can.
Tips
- Height is set automatically (three times the module width per row) for reliable scanning.
- For small square spaces, Data Matrix is usually more compact.
- We don't generate government ID barcodes. Encoding personal ID data for real cards is not something this tool is for.