Abstract:The character two-dimensional barcode is encoded through selecting different schemes for specific character set. The various schemes are selected in order to achieve the highest encoding efficiency. In this paper, we first study the international standard “look-ahead test” algorithm in Data Matrix 2D code, and find it has its limit.We cannot apply the characters two-dimensional code scheme selection immediately. So, based on the international standard “look-ahead test” algorithm in Data Matrix 2D code, the principle of multistage decision and the method of mixed character count are used to archieve a kind of look-ahead algorithm for character two-dimensional barcode. We apply it to the characters two-dimensional code scheme selection. The experiments show that the look-ahead test algorithm is a good solution to solve the characters two-dimensional barcode scheme selection problem.