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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.
The major MICR fonts used around the world are 'E-13B' and 'CMC-7'. Almost all US, Canadian, and U68
★ 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 1960s, the MICR fonts became a symbol of modernity, leading to the creation of lookalike "computer" typefaces that imitated the appearance of the MICR fonts, but, unlike real MICR fonts, had a full character repertoire.

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See also

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See also

★ Optical character recognition

★ GNU General Public Licensed MICR font
hfghfgp://www.asapchecks.com/micr/micr.htm MICR Repository]

★ Java Glossary (defines the routing number and account number)

★ MICR

★ MICR Overview

★ Finance::MICR::LineParser module for Perl

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