Micro PDF417
Reduced overhead defines Micro PDF417, a variant that drops the start and stop patterns and full row indicators of PDF417 in favour of a compact set of predefined row and column combinations addressed by a simpler pattern. Symbol Technologies published it in 2004. Capacity falls accordingly, to 150 alphanumeric or 366 numeric characters, but the symbol fits label areas that full PDF417 cannot. Quiet zones shrink to a single module on each side at a 0.254 mm module size, and the aspect ratio varies with the chosen row and column configuration. Binary payloads are supported. The variant appears most often as the two-dimensional component of GS1 Composite symbols and on small electronic components, and it is not itself a GS1 data carrier.
A compact variant of PDF417 with reduced overhead, designed for small labels where data capacity exceeds what linear codes can carry but full PDF417 is too large. Micro PDF417 uses fewer rows and columns with a simpler row address pattern to minimize symbol size.