Generating landscape and portrait oriented tags

A method for generating landscape or portrait oriented tags embedded with error correctable data, comprising the steps of:

• using an encoder in the printing of a tag having a data area comprising data dots and a locator component comprising constant dots;
• using the tag encoder to obtain, from a stored tag format structure, required data in row-wise or column-wise directions, for both landscape and portrait orientations of the tag;
• the tag format structure being a dot based data package template containing a plurality of entries, each entry corresponding to a dot's position, each entry further indicating whether a dot is a data dot or a constant dot, and accordingly each entry having either fixed data bits or variable data bits.