Magnetic Ink Character Reader Process
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Characters Must Be Printed in Magnetic Ink
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For a machine to read magnetic ink characters, the characters must be printed using special magnetic ink. This ink differs from traditional ink in that it uses magnetically charged components similar to those found in employee identification badges and credit card magnetic strips. Magnetic ink printers must properly position the magnetic charge of each character, and this requirement makes the machines significantly more complex and expensive than standard ink printers. Despite the complex requirements, though, printers may create magnetic characters using inkjet, laser or impact printer technology. In addition, consumers may print magnetic characters with a standard laser printer using magnetic toner and special software drivers. Regardless of the printing technology employed, the output must contain special magnetic signatures to ensure machines can properly read the characters.
Characters Project Magnetic Fingerprints
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Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) technology relies on special magnetic fingerprints in order for the MICR data to properly transfer its information to MICR reader machines. When a printer applies MICR characters, software drivers that enable MICR printing arrange the characters in very specific patterns and shapes. The MICR line on a bank check, for example, may appear printed in an entirely different front than the rest of the check; this difference arises from the unique, specialized shape of the characters. To achieve the unique character shapes, according to the magnetic ink informational website, What Is MICR, magnetic characters are always printed in the special E-13B or CMC-7 MICR-compatible fonts. The characters' special shape also contains a very specific amount of magnetic ink; the specific ink amount and character shape combine to produce a unique magnetic fingerprint that is unlike any other character in the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) library.
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MICR Uses Special Characters
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In addition to very specific shapes and special ink usage, magnetic ink character recognition also relies on special characters that serve particular functions in a collection of MICR data. Individuals who carefully examine the MICR line on a bank check may notice special characters before and after the first nine digits of the line. These characters, designed specifically to serve MICR data purposes, indicate the start and stop of the American Banker's Association (ABA) routing number. In other magnetic ink character recognition applications, these and other special MICR characters may indicate the start, stop and pause of data flow, or help machines understand data that may otherwise seem non sequitur in nature.
Machines Read MICR Data
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When a machine reads a document printed with magnetic ink characters, it looks for very specific characters and character placement. Machines first look in very specific areas of the document for the magnetic ink data. Machines configured to read bank checks, for example, always look in the lower left corner of the document and read characters left to right; machines configured for other purposes may look in different parts of the document for the magnetic data. Machines then read the special MICR characters that indicate what data the machine is to read, and finally read the special magnetic fingerprints of the characters themselves. If the special characters tell the reader to expect certain data, and that data is not present or is not printed with magnetic ink, the machine rejects the document and returns an error. If all of the data is properly read and magnetic ink character recognition computers can assemble the data, they develop a complete and accurate recreation of the read data in an electronic version.
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