On 6/28/07, Vitaliy wrote: > So you think the OCR area should be free of any artwork? It's pretty big, > actually -- since the USPS defines it in terms of margins, not absolute > size. It takes up close to 50% of useable space. No, the address should appear in a white box somewhere inside the OCR area - the remainder of the OCR area can have as much printing as you like, but be aware that if you put line art, words, or other high contrast small figures in the OCR area your letter may require additional processing. So if you only need a 3 inch by 2 inch box for the address at the chosen font size where the address will completely fit inside that box with a little bit of white space on all sides fo the address then anything outside that box can be full color printing. > The way the USPS manual is worded, it sounds like their only concern is that > the address be located within the OCR area. It may be OK to place artwork > around the address box. That's correct as far as I understand. > I'm thinking about creating a sample envelope, and mailing it to myself, to > see whether it will get rejected by USPS. It won't. First class mail is almost always passed through as long as the to: address is valid and either human or machine readable. People have sent all sorts of interesting things through the mail. You will rarely, therefore, get penalized for first class full rate mail. If you use presorted first class, or bulk mail then the requirements don't necessarily get harder, but they won't go to the trouble of hand reading the to: address if the machine rejects it. So as long as you have a small white box somewhere within the OCR area that is computer printed, and there are no terribly distracting elements elsewhere on the face, then you should have no problems. You will probably have no problems even if there are distracting elements on the face as the OCR software is quite sophisticated. -Adam -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Moving in southeast Michigan? Buy my house: http://ubasics.com/house/ Interested in electronics? Check out the projects at http://ubasics.com Building your own house? Check out http://ubasics.com/home/ -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist