Editorial policy
The standard for every page is simple: a reader should be able to act on it without getting a useless barcode. What follows is exactly how the pages are made, what the tests cover, and what a person has and has not read yet.
Last updated 4 November 2026.
How pages are made
Pages are prepared with AI assistance from the documents each page lists at the end, and will be read by a person over time. The copy is written from those documents rather than from memory. A second automated pass compares every number in the copy with a list of facts and where each came from. If a number has no source, the page is held back until it has one. The author on every page is the UPC Generator team, which is the brand itself; no person is named. There is no invented expert, and pages do not claim experience nobody has.
Reading by a person
A person will read the pages over time, after they go live, not before. When a page has been read, a line under its byline says that a person has read it and on what date. Until that line appears on a page, no person has read it, and it has been checked only by the means this policy describes. The date printed on every page is the date of its last update, never a reading.
Where the figures come from
Numbers come from primary documents wherever one is available, mainly the GS1 General Specifications, the GS1 prefix list and GS1 US pricing pages. Some standards sit behind a paywall, as the ISO standards for Code 128 and Code 39 do. Those pages rely on open reference sources and say so in their copy, next to their list of documents. Each tool and guide lists the documents it used and the date they were fetched.
How the encoders are tested
Worked examples on the tool pages are run through the same code as the tools, in automated tests. A wrong example keeps the page from going up. The encoders are tested against published examples from the standards and compared bar for bar with a second, separate encoder. Their output is read back from real image files by decoding software. The about page lists what those tests cover.
How other sites' pages are used
Before a page is written, the pages other sites publish on the same topic are fetched and compared in full where they can be. That shows what readers expect and what those pages leave out. Their text is never copied.
What tested means on these pages
When a page says a barcode was read back, it means a decoder program read a file on a computer. Nothing on this site claims a test on paper with a physical scanner unless it says exactly that. At launch no such test has been run.
Who pays for the site
The site is free and shows no ads at this time. It sells nothing and takes no payment from any barcode company or GS1 member organization. If ads served by Google are added later, the privacy policy will say so before the first one shows. It will also describe the cookies involved and your choices. Advertisers will never choose topics or influence what a guide says. No ad will appear on the contact, legal, site map or guides index pages.
Fixing mistakes
If you find a mistake, write to hello@upcgenerator.net. A mistake in a barcode encoder gets fixed first, with a test added so it cannot come back. A correction to a page moves its last updated date.