Bulk ISBN barcode generator

A batch of ISBN symbols is usually a backlist: a publisher reprinting a season, or a distributor building covers for a catalogue. The numbers already exist — they were assigned by the national ISBN agency long before anyone thought about barcodes — so this is a transcription job, and its risks are the risks of transcription.

One value per line. A single line of comma- or semicolon-separated values works too. A header row (like “Value”) counts as a value and will be rejected — leave it out.

Nothing recognized yet.

Appearance
Size
Caption
Caption position
Caption alignment
Colours

Enter a value — the code appears here.

Specification

Character set
digits
Length
exactly 13 characters
Check digit
calculated automatically by the encoder

Need the specification and use cases first? What is ISBN?

Where this code earns its place in a batch

  • Publisher backlist runs: one batch produces the covers for a whole season, and every symbol is a number the trade already knows how to look up.
  • Distribution and library workflows at once — an ISBN barcode is a retail EAN-13 carrying a book identifier, so a single run serves bookshop tills and library systems alike.
  • Editions that differ by binding or territory, where the batch is a list of distinct ISBNs rather than one number reprinted.

Preparing the list

  • Paste the ISBN-13 values as they appear in the imprint, with or without hyphens: the hyphens are for humans and are dropped before encoding.
  • Decide about the price add-on before the run rather than after: an EAN-5 add-on changes the physical width of every symbol on the sheet, and adding it later means reprinting.
  • Keep the batch to one edition type — paperback and hardback of the same title are different ISBNs, and mixing them is how the wrong cover gets the wrong code.

What goes wrong in a batch

  • Pasting ISBN-10 numbers from an old catalogue: the ten-digit form has been out of use for retail since 2007 and its check digit follows different arithmetic.
  • Losing the 978 or 979 prefix when a spreadsheet reformats the column, leaving ten digits that look like a valid ISBN of the older kind.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to strip the hyphens?
No. Hyphens mark the registration group, registrant and publication elements for a human reader, and the generator removes them before encoding. What matters is that the thirteen digits underneath are the ones the agency assigned.
Can the whole batch carry a price add-on?
Yes, but it applies per title rather than per batch: the add-on encodes a currency and amount, so a run covering several prices needs the values themselves to differ, not a single setting applied to all.

This generator draws a valid ISBN symbol, but the image alone does not grant the right to sell a product under it in retail. The prefix is issued by ISBN Agency — register it there before printing this code on packaging.