Using UPC Symbols

[computer-guy]

I have no idea of the difficulty involved, but is there any way to reduce or eliminate the message "Sorry, this is a 12 digit UPC number that cannot be mapped to an ISBN number. Try looking inside the front cover for an EAN number bar code or type out the ISBN."

I have a lot of books with no EAN number and it is much more efficient to use a bar code scanner on the UPC symbols.

[Nora]

Unfortunately Amazon doesn't keep the UPC for books. It only has the ISBN or the EAN and a 12-digit UPC can't be translated to either one of those. There seems to be a mad complicated work-around so if we ever have some spare time on our hands we might attempt to get that to work for Bookpedia.

[vanderdecker]

Unfortunately Amazon doesn't keep the UPC for books. It only has the ISBN or the EAN and a 12-digit UPC can't be translated to either one of those. There seems to be a mad complicated work-around so if we ever have some spare time on our hands we might attempt to get that to work for Bookpedia.

Are there any work-arounds for the user? I have a TON of books I scanned in with a Cue Cat, and many have UPCs only. Not only would it be tedious to enter so many books manually, they're in a storage locker, so I can't get to them easily (I brought my laptop and the scanner and scanned the bar codes into a text document to be entered into Bookpedia when I got home).

Even if Bookpedia can't currently handle it, is there a manual alternative?

[Conor]

The EAN number for books with UPCs should be inside the front cover in most cases. The reason for the UPC is that regular barcode scanners like supermarket systems couldn't handle the EAN barcode; this is the reason for UPCs being more prevalent in mass market paperbacks.

Since you mentioned your away from your books and it seems scanning the EAN is not a possibility, the new version of Bookpedia can handle the 17 digit UPC (you need to have scanned the supplemental barcode).

Code: Select all

An example book:
A Clash of Kings
ISBN: 0553579908
UPC: 076783006997
Supplement: 57990

As you can see the supplement is the last part of the ISBN. The first part of the ISBN can sometimes be mapped from the first half of the UPC, that is a publisher number. Bookpedia can do this for you if you give it all 17 digits together. However if you only have the 12 digits of the UPC all you have is a publisher number and the suggested retail price (The second half of the number (00699 the 7 is the check digit).

So in conclusion if you have the 12 digits UPC all you have is the publisher of a book, there is very little that either Bookpedia or you can do to figure out the exact book from that.