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IDAutomation's bar code fonts allow printing of POSTNET, PLANET, FIM, OneCode, Intelligent Mail, RM4SCC and Australia Post Address barcodes from systems supporting TrueType, PostScript or PCL laserjet soft fonts including Windows, DOS, Macintosh, Linux and Unix.

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Barcode Fonts | Implementation Notes | Specifications | Installation

A Note About Printing With Fonts:

Implementing solutions with IDAutomation's postal fonts provides a high level of scalability with operating system, application and printer independence. Learn more about the quality of these fonts. The postal fonts that are provided, such as OCR-A and FIM, are easy-to-use. However, barcode fonts such as Postnet and Planet require a "check-digit" calculation, which can be automatically generated with the royalty-free font tools. IDAutomation also offers Barcode Components that print barcodes as images and automatically calculate the required check digits. These components include ActiveX Controls, .NET DLLs, ASP Components, Web Controls and Java Components, in addition to native generators for Access, Crystal Reports, JavaScript and Oracle.

POSTNET Barcode Fonts:

  • The POSTNET (POSTal Numeric Encoding Technique) barcode font is a special font developed to encode zip code information. POSTNET bar codes on US mail improve the speed, accuracy and delivery of mail. Some USPS Offices also offer a discount for sending bulk mail when using the POSTNET barcode on U.S. mail. However, the USPS plans to require the Intelligent Mail barcode to qualify for automation discounts beginning in January of 2009. For this reason, IDAutomation has implemented unique encoding in IDAutomation's Postnet Fonts, which allow printing of Postnet, Planet and Intelligent Mail with the same barcode font, to meet the requirements today with support for the needs of tomorrow.
  • The Postnet Font Package also includes the USPS Special Services Font for EAN128 & GS1-128. The IDAutomationC128L font, when printed at 16 points, will produce the exact dimensions for GS1/UCC/EAN Code 128 required by the USPS special services, which is a height of .75" and an X dimension of .013". For information about formatting USPS UCC/EAN128 barcodes with IDAutomation's products, refer to the USPS portion of the Code 128 FAQ..

PLANET Barcode Fonts:

  • PLANET is a barcode that will track both inbound and outbound letter mail. The PLANET bar codes complement the existing POSTNET barcodes and look very similar. The PLANET barcodes are required by the U.S. Post Office to use their CONFIRM service. CONFIRM provides confirmation that customers received the mail, allowing mailers to synchronize telemarketing programs with direct mail campaigns or augment other advertising media with their mailings.

  • USPS Intelligent Mail OneCode Confirm should be considered for new implementations of this barcode type because it combines Postnet and Planet data into a single symbol.

FIM Barcode Fonts:POSTNET Postal Bar Code Fonts Sample

  • The FIM (Facing Identification Mark) font is a special font used by the U.S. Post Office to separate business reply mail from other mail.
  • The "IDAutomationFIM" font consists of four unique bar codes; each barcode represents a unique reply mail classification as defined in the graphic image.

Intelligent Mail (formerly OneCode Solution) Barcode Fonts:

USPS OneCode Symbol

Intelligent Mail is the USPS implementation of the 4-State Customer Barcode type in the United States. Other implementations of the 4-State Customer Barcode exist in other countries such as RM4SCC, which are described below. The primary purpose of Intelligent Mail is to combine the zip code data of Postnet and the tracking of Planet into a single barcode symbol with additional data as described in the Intelligent Mail FAQ and Tutorial.

Royal Mail, RM4SCC, 4-State and Dutch KIX 4-State:

  • RM4SCC (Royal Mail) font sampleThe Royal Mail created the first 4-state barcode referred to as the "Royal Mail 4 State Customer Code" (RM4SCC). It is used for automated mail sortation processes. This barcode is now used in several countries to print the postcode and Delivery Point Suffix (DPS) on letters in machine readable format. The Dutch KIX barcode is an implementation of the same 4-state bar code.
  • The RM4SCC barcode is based on 36 barcodes representing alpha-numeric characters (0-9, A-Z) as well as start and stop bar characters which are represented by ( and ). It is called "4-state" because the bars in the barcode can be grouped in 4 different ways to represent alpha-numeric data. The RM4SCC barcode can be printed from IDAutomation's fonts by sending the appropriate character to the printer with the "IDAutomationRM" font selected. Font automation tools have been created to assist users in calculating check digits for the RM4SCC 4-state barcode.

Australian Post Address Barcode:

  • The Australian Post Address barcode is another implementation of the same 4-State barcode. However, their implementation uses different encoding tables than the RM4SCC barcode to encode 64 different barcodes in the "C Encoding Table" and 10 in the "N Encoding Table". They also use Reed Solomon error checking instead of a single check character.
  • The Australia Post Address barcode can be printed from IDAutomation's fonts by sending the appropriate bar state value for each bar of the character to the printer with the "IDAutomation4STATE" font selected. For example, to produce the character "H" under the "C Encoding Table", the numbers "012" would need to be sent to the printer. To produce the number "7" under the "N Encoding Table", the numbers "21" would need to be sent to the printer. 
  • At the Future Post website, they provide a guide to print the 4-State Australia Post Address barcode which will provide the encoding tables needed and Visual Basic programming code for calculating the Reed Solomon error correction.

Printing Other Implementations of the 4-State Barcode:

  • Custom implementations of the 4-state barcode may be easily produced with IDAutomation's fonts. The character above the barcode sample in the chart below is the character to print that will produce the bar pattern with the appropriate font selected.

    Font Used

    		 Tracker, Ascender and Descender Tracker and Ascender Tracker and Descender Tracker
    IDAutomation4STATE 0   1   2   3  
    IDAutomationPOSTNET p   q   r   s  
    IDAutomationPOSTNET F   A   D   T  
       
                     
       

About OCR-A Fonts:

OCR-A fonts are used for better character recognition at post offices that have new advanced optical character recognition systems. These systems can decode the characters in the address without error because they conform to the ISO standard. One example is the OCR-A font that is used occasionally on U.S. mail with the FIM-D barcode symbol.

Font Automation and Implementation Tools:

To help users integrate barcodes into their applications, IDAutomation provides several font automation tools such as Microsoft Office Macros for Word, Excel and Access, Visual Basic, ANSI C and JAVA Source Code, ActiveX DLLs, Crystal Reports User Function Libraries (UFLs) and a check digit calculation application with Visual Basic source code as a free download for programmers and technical users. The tools automatically format the start, stop and check characters to the barcode fonts.

Testing and Verification Recommendations:

Before sending the printed barcodes to the post office, it is recommended to find some method of doing a test scan on the barcode or verify it with a POSTNET & Intelligent Mail Barcode Reader or Verifier. IDAutomation offers an easy-to-use Postnet scanner and verifier that will scan and grade the bar-codes with a quality assurance test and report any possible issues. This is an example of the output that is received when scanning a barcode that was still acceptable to the post office:
  >>> PQA from Hand Held Products <<<
 POSTNET: 62 Bars, nominally from 02.54 to 03.05 in. in Width
 Bar Sequence: 10011000110011001100010100000111100000110100011000101010011001
 [A] (Ok) < Tall Bar Heights: 0.130 in.
 [B] (Hi) < Short Bar Heights: 0.058 in.
 [A] (Ok) < Bar Widths = 0.021 in.
 [A] (Ok) < Inter-Bar Gaps = 0.024 in.

To Order the Barcode Fonts:

NOTE: After ordering the POSTNET Barcode Font Advantage Package license, the customer will receive the complete fully functional POSTNET, PLANET, FIM, OCR-A, and Code 128 font set with rights to use IDAutomation tools, macros and source code.

Secure online ordering for POSTNET fonts IDAutomation offers secure online ordering by credit card and immediate delivery via download after the order is approved. If ordering by PO, phone or another method, please follow these procedures.

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© Copyright 1999-2009 IDAutomation.com, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Additional Legal Notices. Intelligent Mail, OneCode ACS and OneCode Confirm are trademarks of the U. S. Postal Service.