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What's the deal with PDF417? Why did they choose it over QR?
by RicoElectrico 2y ago
What's the deal with PDF417? Why did they choose it over QR?
- ssl-3 2y agoPerhaps a better question is: Why not PDF417? What functional improvement would be had by using a 2D QR code?
- chocolatkey 2y agoOne possible reason I can think of is that phone camera apps will not proactively read PDF417 barcodes like they will QR codes, thus discouraging people from thinking they can scan and decode them.
- ssl-3 2y agoThat's may be a good reason. My phone's default camera app can recognize QR and UPC (and certainly other things; but I have other tools that I usually use when actually-using barcodes so I'm not that familiar with this part of the camera app), but it doesn't seem willing to do anything with PDF417.
- RicoElectrico 2y agoPDF417 has non-square pixels (or rather as it's called in barcode nomenclature "modules") which feels very janky - it was meant for linear scanners after all. Oh, and quoting Wikipedia: In practice, a PDF417 symbol takes about four times the area of a DataMatrix or QR Code.
- ssl-3 2y agoYes. They're clearly different things. Which of these aspects offers a functional improvement in this application? ("Feels janky" doesn't quite cut the mustard, I don't think.)