Barcode Label Printers
Glossary A
Browse through our glossary to find out definitions for bar coding and RFID terms.
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| Glossary Term | Definition |
| ACCESS POINT | Provides a bridge between Ethernet wired LANs and the wireless network. Access points are the connectivity point between Ethernet wired networks and devices (laptops, hand-held computers, point-of-sale terminals) equipped with a wireless LAN adapter card. |
| ACCURACY | The determination of whether any element width or inter-character gap width (if applicable) differs from its nominal width by more than the printing tolerance. |
| ACTIVE TAGS | Tags that use batteries as a partial or complete source of power to boost the effective operating range of the tag and to offer additional features over passive tags, such as temperature sensing. |
| ADC | Automated Data Collection or Automated Data Capture – refers to all technologies that automate the process of data collection without the use of a keyboard, including bar code, magnetic stripe, (OCR) optical card reader, voice recognition, smart card, or (RFID) radio frequency identification. ADC provides a quick, accurate, and cost-effective way to collect and enter data. |
| ADD ON 2 | Used in conjunction with EAN or UPC barcodes, 2-digit supplemental barcodes are only used with magazines, newspapers and other such periodicals. The 2-digit supplement represents the issue number of the magazine. |
| ADD ON 5 | Used in conjunction with EAN or UPC barcodes, 2-digit supplemental barcodes are only used with books. The 5-digit supplement represents the suggested retail price. |
| ADHESIVE | (1) A substance (cement, glue, gum) capable of holding materials together by surface contact. (2) The portion of a pressure sensitive label which allows the label to cling to its intended surface. |
| ADSL | Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line a successor to ISDN. It is used to transfer voice and data over the same line. |
| AFC | Automatic Fare Collection, the use of contact or contact less smart cards for payment. |
| AIAG | Automotive Industry Action Group – a trade association responsible for creating automotive industry standards pertaining to bar code symbology and common label formats. |
| AIDC | Automatic Identification and Data Capture; a generic term encompassing bar code scanning, optical character recognition, biometrics, machine vision, mobile computing and RF data communications, RFID, voice recognition, contact memory, magnetic cards, smart cards etc. |
| AIM | Automatic Identification Manufacturers, Inc. – a U.S. trade association headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA who represent the manufacturers of automatic identification systems. |
| ALIGNMENT | An automatic identification system (Auto ID), the relative position and orientation of a scanner to the symbol. |
| ALPHANUMERIC | A character set consisting of letters, numbers, and usually other characters such as special symbols. |
| ANALOG PHONE | Comes from the word "analogous," which means similar to. In telephone transmission, the signal being transmitted from the phone voice, video or image is analogous to the original signal. |
| ANKER CODE | See Plessey Code |
| ANSI | American National Standards Institute – a non-governmental organization responsible for the development of voluntary bar code quality standards. Bar code printing standards and the readability of bar code symbols are determined and classified into grades from A to F, to provide an overall symbol quality test. |
| ANTENNA-DIRECTIONAL | Transmits and receives radio waves off the front of the antenna. The power behind and to the sides of the antenna is reduced. The coverage area is oval with the antenna at one of the narrow ends. Typical directional antenna beam width angles are from 90 (somewhat directional) to as little as 20(very directional). A directional antenna directs power to concentrate the coverage pattern in a particular direction. The antenna direction is specified by the angle of the coverage pattern called the beam width. |