Abbreviation for AIM International, a world-wide trade organization for manufacturers and providers of bar code products, services and supplies. AIM endorses many barcode standards, one of which is the DataMatrix standard.

Technologies developed by Microsoft for sharing information among different applications.

Acronym for American National Standards Institute. A member of ISO (International Standards Organization).

A technology that uses white spaces and black bars or cells to represent encoded information. This encoded information can then be read with a barcode reader.

A device (laser, CCD scanner etc.) used to read a barcode and export the information to a computer.

A text string which becomes a bar code after being formatted with a barcode font. A barcode usually adds start/stop characters, as well as checksum characters to the data input. Consequently you can not just format the data with the font to create a valid barcode. In data matrix fontware, it is a synonym for encoder results.

Acronym for Charge Coupled Device. CCD scanners use LEDs (instead of laser) to light the barcode.

Acronym for Component Object Model. A software architecture developed by Microsoft to build component-based applications. A COM object is identified with a unique identity, and exposes interfaces that allows applications and components to access their features in a language-independent manner.

Data matrix is a space-efficient two-dimensional bar code symbology that is made up of square modules. DataMatrix could encode up to 2335 alphanumeric characters, or 1556 characters of 8-bit byte data, or 3116 digits of numeric data.(*) Data Matrix could encode virtually everything including ASCII character, extended characters, Unicode characters and binaries.

Acronym for Dynamic Link Library, a library of executable functions or data that can be used by a Windows application. A DLL can be used by several applications at the same time. Some DLLs are provided with the Windows operating system and available for any Windows application. Other DLLs are written for a particular application and are loaded with the application.

Acronym for graphical user interface. A program interface that takes advantage of the computer's graphics capabilities to make the program easier to use.

Acronym for International Organization for Standardization. ISO is a network of the national standards institutes of 157 countries, on the basis of one member per country, with a Central Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland, that coordinates the system.

In linear symbology, a module refers to the width of the narrowest bars. In two dimensional symbology, a module refers to the cell smallest in size.

Acronym for Printer Control Language, the page description language (PDL) developed by Hewlett Packard and used in many of their laser and ink-jet printers.

Acronym for Portable Document Format. A file format developed by Adobe Systems for representing documents in a manner that is independent of the word processing software, hardware and operating system used to create those document. A PDF file can describe documents containing any combination of text, graphics, and images in a device independent and resolution independent format.

A clear space, containing no machine readable marks, which surrounds the barcode. Sometimes called the "clear area."

Acronym for Rich Text Format. A document file developed by Microsoft since 1987 for cross-platform document interchange. Most word processors are able to read and write RTF documents.

Acronym for eXtensible Markup Language. XML refers to a set of open standards describing data ranging from representation (such as web pages) to business structure. Unlike HTML, XML does not have a set of predefined elements. Instead it provides a common method for describe a document type and the data.