User's Manual

Reader User Guide DT-018581

Figure 18: Successful Test Card Reading

Reading Documents

The readers read the barcode and machine-readable zone (MRZ) text on both identification cards

and passports. When the document is properly aligned on the document window, the image is

taken and optical character recognition is performed (when there is OCR data) followed by the

barcode recognition.

Barcodes uniquely identify each passport with specially encoded information about the

document holder. Single or two dimensional barcodes may be used.

Single dimensional (1D) barcodes encode information along their width. Each character of the

alphabet is represented by a specific combination of thick and thin bars and spaces. To add more

information, the width of the barcode must be increased. This eventually poses problems for

secure document issuers due to the lack of free space available for the barcode. Two dimensional

(2D) barcodes encode information vertically as well as horizontally. This allows 2D barcodes to

contain more information packed into a smaller space.

Reading 1D Barcodes

1D barcodes are usually printed at a resolution level that allows them to be accurately captured

by most optical scanners such as the 3M™ Full Page Reader. Their images are usually easily

decoded by a PC-based application.

The readers read three kinds of 1D barcodes:

• 2 of 5 interleaved

• Code 39 (Code 3 of 9)

• Code 128