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Magnetic Ink Character Recognition or MICR is a standard font for typing the bottom line of a check printed with a special kind of magnetic ink. MICR is machine readable by inexpensive machines and the ink can hold up to severe conditions.

  • K cheques now include MICR characters at the bottom of the paper in the E-13B font. Some countries, including France, use the CMC-7 font developed by Bull .


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In addition to their unique fonts, MICR characters are printed with a magnetic ink or toner, usually containing Iron Oxide . Magnetic printing is used so that the characters can be reliably read into a system, even when they have been overprinted with other marks such as cancellation stamps. The characters are read with a device similar in nature to the head of an audio Tape Recorder , and the letterforms' bulbous shapes ensure that each letter produces a unique Waveform for the read head.

The error rate for the magnetic scanning of the numbers at the bottom of a typical cheque is smaller than with Optical Character Recognition systems.

In the 1960 s, the MICR fonts became a symbol of modernity, leading to the creation of lookalike "computer" Typeface s that imitated the appearance of the MICR fonts, but, unlike real MICR fonts, had a full character repertoire.


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