Talk:Magnetic ink character recognition

Can anyone explain what these OCR and MICR characters mean: ⑀ ⑁ ⑂ ⑃ ⑄ ⑅ ⑆ ⑇ ⑈ ⑉ ⑊

They can be found in Unicode area U+2440 – U+245F Optical Character Recognition

--Abdull 19:23, 18 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Some explanation is here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.74.192.222 (talk) 02:25, 4 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

How about some information on why the characters look the way they do, etc? --대조 | Talk 10:35, 13 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Yes. The first and second control characters you see on the picture File:Transit Number Symbol.GIFare Routing/Transit Number Symbols. The third and fourth control characters you see File:On Us Symbol.GIF are On Us Symbols. The fifth and sixth control characters you see File:Amount Symbol.GIF are Amount Symbols. And finally, the seventh and eighth control characters File:Dash Symbol.GIF are Dash Symbols. Hope this helps. If anyone would like to write an excerpt on this feel free. Joshddd1 01:21, 19 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

I added a link that explained the numbers, but someone should really write it up and put it in the article. Also, I assume it's different for different countries.

The reason the characters look the way they do, is due to the "Reader" technology. The read heads are similar to the magnetic read heads used with magnetic tape. Each character generates a unique waveform that is processed by the reader/sorter machines. Augiechan 23:41, 9 June 2006 (UTC)Reply

I suggest that the image of CMC7 characters is changed (see http://www.feb-patrimoine.com/projet/cmc7/historique_cmc7.htm). The current image is from a free CMC7 font available online, and the "0" (zero) character is wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.169.33.62 (talk) 13:39, 18 October 2018 (UTC)Reply

I think that the citation may be out of date. If inkjet printers are not suitable for MICR printing (according to the cited page ), then what exactly is VersaInk? (see ) —TheMuuj ^Talk 02:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Can anyone direct me to a free lookalike E-13B font? --38.116.200.66 14:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

This is an American technology, so "checks" should use the modern spelling. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.40.244.61 (talk) 01:06, 14 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Not entirely. Groupe Bull in France deployed the CMC-7 MICR technology the year before E13B came out in the US. --scruss (talk) 23:00, 3 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Magnetic Ink redirects here; What is magnetic ink? can anyone expand? 62.90.54.24 (talk) 15:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

New laws in effect require that all checks must be digitally scanned.

From what I understand checks are now mostly read optically rather than magnetically.

Perhaps this should be reflected somewhere, but I have no references.

68.2.35.62 (talk) 19:25, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

The bank that I work at uses a digital scanner which complies to the Check 21 act. It reads the amount of the cheque (which is of course written in non-magnetic ink, usually by hand) optically but reads the MICR magnetically. This allows for much more accurate information when trasferring information between banks. One wrong digit and thousands of dollars could be lost. Due to the high accuracy rate of elecromagnetic MICR reading, it makes more sense to use it in this fashion. ~ PHDrillSergeant...§ 14:56, 15 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

Someone needs to define the term par-crossing in this caption. There is no information in Wikipedia or Wiktionary or anything reliable online to define this evidently arcane banking term. It should be either defined or changed to something more readily understood by us ordinary English-speaking WP users.--Jim10701 (talk) 02:44, 24 November 2011 (UTC)Reply

The link which was added to "crossed-checks" explains a different mechanism (roughly equivalent to "for deposit only" in the US), not "par-crossing" as used here to mean "A Canadian cheque, redeemable via the US Federal Reserve system" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.230.91.172 (talk) 22:30, 5 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

The intro says the MICR line includes the check amount but does not mention the check number. How could/does the check amount get printed on the check? Why doesn't the intro mention the check number? 2601:186:8100:65E4:2409:E043:9C9:4216 (talk) 02:48, 26 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

SemanticMantis suggested at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing that "Probably we could use an article on E13-B font, rather than just a redirect to MICR." It seems to me that that would mean that there would be ultimately three articles, one for MICR in general, one on MICR E-13B and one on MICR CMC-7. While that would be possible, I feel it's better they are covered together, since (a) they share much information, (b) it is good to have them in one page to compare them, (c) the article is small as it is and does not need to be split, and (d) only start class and (e) low on WikiProject Typography's importance scale. — Sebastian 20:21, 8 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• CanadianChequeSamplePAR.png

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 03:58, 4 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

The second symbol, ⑈, is variously referred to in the text and sources as "on-us", "on us", "On-US", or "onus".

"On us" makes me think of the sense of "on" as "paid for by"; but "paid for by us" doesn't make much sense in context. "On-US" with capitals implies some kind of acronym, but I don't know what for. "Onus" with no space or hyphen is a Latinate word for "burden" or "responsibility", which seems more relevant.

It would be good to have a source for where this name came from, and what it's original intended meaning was. - IMSoP (talk) 14:24, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Ooh, this page has a tantalising mention of some alternative names:

" The last symbols are called, following the order into picture, BSB (or Transit), Domestic (or On-Us), Amount, Dash "

Could "On US" mean "drawn on a US account", which would be a synonym of "domestic" in the eyes of the US creators of the standard? - IMSoP (talk) 14:35, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

An "on-us" check is "simply a check that is deposited or cashed at the same financial institution from which it originated",^[1] so the "us" appears to be "us", as in "the bank at which the account against which the check is written is located", not anything to do with the United States. Guy Harris (talk) 19:07, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

See On-us check, to which I linked the first occurrence of "on-us". I also changed the spelling to consistently be "on-us". Guy Harris (talk) 19:19, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply