To ensure a consistent set of metric and inch-based dimension equivalents, a consistent precision (significant digits), method of conversion (inches to millimetres and millimetres to inches), and method of rounding has been established.
Note: The following rules are for use by GS1 technical staff only. Writers and editors should never round numbers provided by technical staff.
Because readers expect appendices to be at the back of a document, appendices should appear following the last section.
When labelling a data structure, the numbered positions in the structure should be labelled incrementally from left to right. The leftmost position should be “position one” and positions to its right should increase by increments of one.
“Open Issues” indicate blocks of text that are placeholders for work in progress. This style is only to be used on “work-in-progress” documents and it shall not be used in published, ratified, documents.
Notes draw the readers’ attention to information of special importance or information that does not belong in the body text. There are two types of note icons available:
Note
Important
Follow this numbering convention when labelling document sections:
■ 2 Highest level – use for major section headers
■ 2.1 Subsection (subhead) of the preceding section (2)
■ 2.1.1 Subsection (subhead) of the preceding section (2.1)
■ 2.1.1.1 Subsection (subhead) of the preceding section (2.1.1)
-- and so on.
The concept of “conformance” is central to GS1 standards. A GS1 standard exists to define certain characteristics of an implementation created by an end user or solution provider. An implementation is said to conform to a GS1 standard if it satisfies the conformance conditions laid out in the text of the standard. The standard is written such that when multiple implementations are in conformance to the standard, those implementations are capable of interoperating in the way envisioned by the authors of the standard.
All GS1’s technical documents have a release number and this will appear on the title page. The release number has the structure N.N or N.N.N and the guidance for usage is.
■ The first number indicates a MAJOR release. 1 is the first release, while 2 indicates a new release that is incompatible with release 1.
■ The second digit is used for a MINOR release. This indicates backward-compatible additions or small changes to the wording or structure
