Overview

MaxiCode is a fixed-sized two-dimensional symbology created by the United Parcel Service that is primarily used for freight sortation and tracking. It's symbols have modules arranged in a hexagonal grid around a circular finder pattern which can be read omnidirectionally.

Invokation

• MaxiCode has five alphabets A, B, C, D and E, each containing 64 characters.

  • Alphabet A contains mostly upper case letters, numbers and some common ASCII symbols.
  • Alphabet B contains mostly lower case letters and common ASCII symbols.
  • Alphabet C contains mostly upper case letters from the extended ASCII character set and less common ASCII symbols.
    
  • Alphabet D contains mostly lower case letters from the extended ASCII character set and less common ASCII symbols.
    
  • Alphabet E contains mostly the special ASCII characters and unprintable symbols.
    
• Non-printable/typable characters can be entered as their escaped ordinal values, e.g. ^028 for FS and ^059 for [shift B], etc.
• The symbol always starts in alphabet A which is suitable for the most basic contents.
  
• You can switch the working alphabet within the data using the [latch B], [latch A], ... characters.
• You can temporarily shift to another alphabet for a varying number of characters using the [shift A], [2 shift A], [3 shift A], ... characters.
• You can remain in an alphabet to which you have shifted using the [lock in C], [lock in D], ... characters.
  
• There are also more advanced features for encoding for which a thorough reading of the specification is required as these cannot be described succinctly here.
  

Example MaxiCode in mode 2 with standard field identifier [)>GS01GSyy

0 0 moveto (^059^042^041^059^040^03001^02996152382802^029840^029001^0291Z00004951^029UPSN^02906X610^029159^0291234567^0291^0471^029^029Y^029634 ALPHA DR^029PITTSBURGH^029PA^030^062^004^063) (mode 2) maxicode barcode

MaxiCode Character Table

Value Code A      Code B      Code C      Code D      Code E
----- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- -----------
0     CR          '           À           à           NUL
1     A           a           Á           á           SOH

to be completed...