Printing Bar Codes

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) uses the POSTNET bar-coding scheme to sort letters at high speeds. The USPS high-speed scanners read the bar code during the sorting process.

iMIS allows you to pre-print the POSTNET bar codes on reports such as labels, badges, billing reminders, and accounts receivable notices so you can take full advantage of the large discounts offered by the USPS for mailings with pre-printed bar codes. Refer to the following example.

Current USPS regulations allow bar codes to be printed with the address, instead of requiring the bar code to be printed on the envelope. The iMIS bar code is compatible with both laser and dot-matrix printers.

Note: You must be licensed to use the iMIS postal bar code feature.

To include bar coding on a report

1.  Include the ZIP code (ZIP + 4) in your iMIS customer records along with the address.

2.  When you are generating a report that can use bar coding, such as most labels, you will see an option labeled Barcode on the bottom half of the Selections window under Print Options. Select the Barcode print option.

3.  Click OK.

The bottom half of the Selections window.

Note: If Barcode does not appear under Print Options, it is not available for the current report.

When the bar codes print on the output, they automatically appear flush left above the mailing address and, by default, all of the output sorts by ZIP code.

Example of a properly aligned barcode.

If your bar code font appears wrong, check that the correct font is installed. Postal BarCode v.1.02 is located in a \FONTS directory in your \iMIS directory.

Note: To change the default setting for the Barcode option for a report you use frequently, change NO_BARCODE to PRINT_BARCODE (or the reverse) in the Report Specification Parameters field for that report format.