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An ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) identifies a magazine, newspaper or journal as a title, not a single issue. On the cover it’s printed as an EAN-13 barcode that starts with 977, usually with a small second barcode for the issue number.

Decode one

Scan or paste a barcode and see every part of it.

Make one

Generate a valid barcode from fields.

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Where you’ll see it

  • Magazines and newspapers sold at retail.
  • Journals and other periodicals, in print and online. Each medium has its own ISSN.
  • Not on books. A one-off publication uses an ISBN.

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Anatomy

An ISSN has 8 digits, written as two groups of four: 1234-5679. The last is a check digit, and it can be X. The barcode is an ordinary EAN-13 built around the first seven of those digits: The ISSN’s own check digit, the 9 in 1234-5679, isn’t in the barcode. The EAN-13 has a check digit of its own instead.

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The issue number add-on

An ISSN stays the same for every issue, so the main barcode can’t tell this week’s magazine from last week’s. That’s the job of the add-on: a separate 2-digit or 5-digit barcode to the right, which usually holds the issue number. Retailers use it to return unsold copies of the right issue. Scanners read it only if they’re set up to.

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Check digit

There are two different check digits, and they use different methods. In the barcode, the last digit is a standard EAN-13 check digit, calculated with GS1 mod-10: In the printed ISSN, the eighth digit uses mod-11 and can be X. Both methods are worked through in Check digits.
  • EAN-13: the barcode an ISSN is printed as.
  • ISBN: the equivalent for books, with prefixes 978 and 979.

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Gotchas

  • The scan doesn’t contain the ISSN as printed. 1234-5679 scans as 9771234567003. To get the ISSN back, take digits 4 to 10 and recalculate its check digit.
  • 15 or 18 digits instead of 13. The add-on was read too. See an add-on that came along.
  • Every issue scans the same. Without the add-on, you can identify the title but not the issue.
  • The variant digits change. Two barcodes for the same title can differ in digits 11 and 12, and so in the check digit. Compare digits 4 to 10 to match a title.

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Scanning it in your app

A scanner reports an ISSN as an EAN-13. ISSN is in the Retail product group along with EAN-13, so enabling that group reads periodicals too.

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Specification