If you have ever looked at a check for long, you probably have noticed that the MICR line, made of Magnetic Ink Character Recognition Toner and containing the bank routing and account number, at the bottom of the check is in an interesting font. Although it may seem trivial, this font is accepted worldwide for checks, and is always used. You may wonder why it is so important to maintain the font’s clarity and consistency, but without using the same font for each check, MICR toner wouldn’t work, and checks couldn’t be processed.
MICR Toner
MICR toner is ink that can be magnetized. Information is printed at the bottom of each check with a MICR line which contains the bank routing number and account number. This information is read by a MICR reader at a bank by magnetizing the ink and “reading” the shape of the character. It then gives the computer the information needed to take the money from the bank and account found in the MICR line, and transfer it into the payee’s account. This is where fonts become important.
Fonts and MICR Toner
Although the MICR toner could still be magnetized and contain the correct information, the fonts the MICR Toner is printed with must be able to be recognized as correct data by the computer. If the MICR reader cannot translate the image of the character into specific data for the computer to use, the MICR toner is pointless. This is why every MICR reader can understand two different fonts: E-13B and CMC-7. These two fonts are programmed into the computer and are standard around the world, so that any bank’s computer can read the information and input it into the system. The characters are also able to be read by humans so that in case a computer makes a mistake, the teller can rectify it, or read the information without relying on the MICR reader.
The standard font in the USA, the UK, Australia and Canada is the E-13B font, shown here:
The top line shows the numbers used for routing numbers and bank account numbers. The first character on the second line is known as On-Us, which becomes before a customer’s account number. The second character is a dash that spaces between different numbers. The third character is known as transit, and it is before a bank routing number. The last character is called amount, which sometimes says how much the transaction is worth. This information is plugged into a computer, and the computer can automatically read the information.
CMC-17 is used by other major European countries.
The fonts were created around the mid 1950’s when the Stanford Research Institute and General Electric Computer Laboratory developed the font and software for reading MICR. In 1958 the American Bankers Association announced that the E13B font was the standard for all checks printed using MICR. The CMC-7 font was developed in France by Group Bull in 1957. It was adopted as the standard in those countries soon after.
Fonts are important to the check printing process. Piracle, which has designed a check printing software, has the regulated font for checks to be read using MICR toner. If you are interested in purchasing check printing software, or Piracle’s MICR toner, please visit www.Piracle.com.