--- title: "ISBN barcode generator, EAN-13 with a price add-on" description: "A scannable EAN-13 barcode from your ISBN, with the five digit price add-on, as vector SVG and 300 dpi PNG at true print size. Nothing uploaded." source: https://usegalley.com/resources/isbn-barcode-generator --- [Home](https://usegalley.com/) [Resources](https://usegalley.com/resources) ISBN barcode generator # ISBN barcode generator Your ISBN in, a scannable EAN-13 out, with the five digit price add-on if you want one. Vector SVG for a designer, 300 dpi PNG for everyone else, both at true print size. It runs in your browser. ISBN Ten or thirteen digits. Hyphens and spaces are fine. Price currency Leave this off if the price will change. Price Up to 99.99. Four digits is all the add-on holds. Magnification Print the ISBN above the bars Printed size 37.29 × 30.13 mm nothing encoded yet This runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, and there is no account to make. ## How an EAN-13 barcode is built **An EAN-13 is 95 bars and spaces wide.** Three at each end and five in the middle are guard bars, and the rest are twelve digits at seven modules each. The first digit is not drawn at all. It is encoded in the pattern of odd and even parity across the six digits after it, which is why it prints on its own out to the left. **The check digit is the last one**, and it is the ISBN's own. Multiply the first twelve alternately by 1 and 3, add them up, and take what is left to the next ten. A ten digit ISBN is converted here first by putting 978 in front and working the check digit out again, which is the same book with a modern number. The sums on their own are on [the ISBN checker](https://usegalley.com/resources/isbn-checker). **The price add-on is a separate EAN-5.** Its own check digit picks the parity pattern rather than printing, so five digits go in and five digits come out. 90000 is the code for a book with no price encoded, and it is the safer choice unless the price is fixed. **Size, quiet zones and magnification.** One module is 0.33 millimetres at 100%, so the symbol is 31.35 millimetres of bars with eleven modules of clear space on the left and seven on the right. That white space is part of the barcode. Print anything into it and the scanner loses the edge of the symbol. The bars are 22.85 millimetres tall and the guards run five modules further down so the digits have somewhere to sit. **The digits are set in whatever monospace your machine has**, because the specification asks for OCR-B and nobody has it. That is fine on screen and fine in the PNG, which bakes them in. In the SVG, convert the text to outlines in your design app before you hand the file to a printer, or use the PNG. **Where it goes on the cover.** Inside the 2 by 1.2 inch area on the back, clear of the safe margins. [The cover template generator](https://usegalley.com/resources/book-cover-template-generator) draws that area at the right place and size for your trim and page count. The number itself belongs on the copyright page too, once per format. [The copyright page generator](https://usegalley.com/resources/copyright-page-generator) sets those out and checks each one, and [publishing](https://usegalley.com/docs/publishing) covers where Galley keeps them beside the manuscript. **For working things out, not for signing anything.** Printers and retailers set their own rates and specifications, change them without notice, and none of them is affiliated with me or with Galley. I checked these figures by hand in September 2026 against [the International ISBN Agency's users' manual](https://www.isbn-international.org/content/isbn-users-manual) and [KDP's paperback cover specification](https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201953020). Confirm on the official page before you commit money to a price, a print run or a contract. ## Questions Do I need a barcode on my book? For a printed book sold in a shop, yes. Amazon prints its own on the copies it sells through KDP, so a KDP-only paperback needs a clear 2 by 1.2 inch area on the back cover and nothing more. The moment you print elsewhere, sell direct, or go through a distributor into shops, you supply the symbol. What is the difference between an ISBN and a barcode? The ISBN is the number. The barcode is a picture of it that a scanner can read. A book barcode is an EAN-13, and for a book the thirteen digits of the EAN are the thirteen digits of the ISBN, which is why no conversion is needed. What are the five extra digits next to it? The price add-on. The first digit is the currency, 5 for US dollars, 6 for Canadian, 0 for pounds, and the four after it are the price in cents or pence. So 51999 is 19.99 US dollars. 90000 means no price is encoded, which is what to use if you plan to change the price. How big should it print? The standard symbol is 37.29 by about 26 millimetres, which is 100% magnification. Anything from 80% to 200% scans. Below 80% you are asking a shop scanner to read something it was not designed for, and the answer at a till is that it does not. Why is the ISBN above the bars not hyphenated? Because where the hyphens go depends on the registration group and the registrant, which is a lookup table. Type your ISBN in with the hyphens your agency gave you and they print as typed. Type it bare and it prints bare. Wrong hyphens on a cover are worse than none. Is my ISBN sent anywhere? No. The barcode is drawn in this tab. There is no server behind the page, nothing is logged, and nothing is kept when you close it. ## Next [ISBN checkerWhether the number is valid before you print it.](https://usegalley.com/resources/isbn-checker) [Cover template generatorThe area on the back cover this has to fit.](https://usegalley.com/resources/book-cover-template-generator) [Copyright page generatorWhere the number goes inside the book.](https://usegalley.com/resources/copyright-page-generator) More at [the resources index](https://usegalley.com/resources). Put all this into practice when you write your novel in Galley. [Launch Galley](https://app.usegalley.com)