ISBN barcode generator

Type your ISBN and get the barcode for the back cover: the EAN-13 bars with the ISBN printed above them, the way bookshops and distributors expect. ISBN-10s are converted to 13 digits, the check digit is verified, and you can add a 5-digit price code. Download a vector SVG for your cover file or a PNG. Free, no sign-up.

Barcode type
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Style

Bar color
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Transparent

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Text under bars

ISBN, EAN-13 and the price add-on

A book barcode is an ordinary EAN-13 whose number is the ISBN-13 (it starts with 978 or 979), so shop scanners read it like any product. Type the ISBN with its hyphens (copy them from your copyright page; they mark the country, publisher and title parts) and the page prints the "ISBN 978-..." line above the bars; without hyphens you get the same bars with only the digits below. An old 10-digit ISBN such as 1-56581-231-X becomes 978-1-56581-231-4: the check digit is recalculated, so you can't just put 978 in front. The optional 5-digit add-on after a space is the price code used mainly in the US and Canada: the first digit is the currency (5 = US dollars) and the rest the price, so 52495 means $24.95 and 90000 means no price printed. The ISBN itself has to come from your national ISBN agency (Bowker in the US, Nielsen in the UK); this page draws the barcode for the number you have.

Tips for a barcode that scans

Quiet zone: keep the blank margin left and right of the bars (this page adds it); a label edge or text too close is the most common reason a barcode fails. Contrast: dark bars on a light background; red bars are invisible to most laser scanners, which use red light. Size: don't squash the width to fit a label: scale the whole image instead. EAN-13 and UPC-A are designed for about 37 × 26 mm at 100%, and printing below 80% needs a good printer. Print: use the SVG, which stays sharp at any size; a stretched PNG blurs the bar edges.

How it works

Barcodes are drawn in your browser by the open-source bwip-js library (MIT), a port of Barcode Writer in Pure PostScript, which validates input and computes check digits the way the standards define them. Nothing you type is sent to a server. Where your browser supports it, the page also scans its own output with the built-in barcode reader to confirm it decodes to exactly what you typed.

Barcodes on generated labels, invoices and PDFs

Need a barcode on every shipping label, ticket or invoice your app produces? Draw it in your HTML (an inline SVG from a barcode library, or an <img>) and render the page with the Shotmint API, which prints it in real Chromium so the bars come out exactly as in the browser:

curl -X POST https://shotmint.creasework.com/v1/pdf -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"html":"<h1>Order #42</h1><img src=\"https://your-site.com/barcode/42.svg\" width=\"300\">","format":"A6"}' -o label.pdf

Each PDF or screenshot is 1 credit. €5 buys 2,000 with no subscription, and credits never expire. Related free tools: invoice generator, HTML to PDF, HTML to image.

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FAQ

Can I use these barcodes on products I sell? The image is yours to use anywhere, with no attribution. But for shop shelves the number matters: EAN and UPC numbers must come from GS1, or retailers will reject them. Code 128 and the others are fine for any internal numbering.

Why does it say the check digit is wrong? EAN, UPC, ITF-14 and ISBN numbers end with a digit computed from the others. Type the number without it and it's added for you; type it in full and it's verified, so a typo can't turn into a barcode that scans as the wrong product.

Is there a limit? No limits, no watermark and no account. Make as many as you need.

Which file should I download? SVG for print and packaging (vector, sharp at any size), PNG for Word, Google Docs and label software, JPG only if a tool accepts nothing else.