2. ICR Considerations

ICR reading rates are still only marginally cost-justifiable, and so every consideration should be taken to provide for the best possible read rates. We recommend that all ICR customers have their documents test printed (if applicable) so that as many issues as possible are resolved before the site goes live with new documents.

A normal document read rate that would be considered good is probably around 60-70% doing a meter read type application as shown on the example stub. As these read rates are achieved during a batch process, saving the operator from keying 30-40% of the meter readings is a time savings that can be justified. Some stub layouts have already been set up for ICR, so if your application matches a previously set up configuration, it is recommended that you mimic that layout. Here are some of the issues to keep in mind as you design the ICR portion of your stub.

• Character box shading: The location of the handwriting needs to be consistent for proper recognition. To ensure that the data is consistently placed, shaded boxes are provided. The shading should be done using "no-repro" blue or green "drop-out" ink, which will cause the shaded box to be invisible to the image camera. They should also not be printed solid, but be printed at a 100 and 50 screen. This will help keep an over-sensitive camera from seeing the ink even if it is within specifications.
  
  
• Location of the ICR boxes: The boxes should have a clear band around them of at least 1/8^th inch. The clearer the area surrounding the boxes, the better the chance of reading handwriting. The boxes often are not filled in properly, and if the handwriting strays out of the box, it can still be read if the area around it is the clear. The example we have above does not follow these rule for the "Amount Enclosed" text printed above the ICR boxes, and the read rates have suffered slightly because of this.
  
  
• Spacing and Size: The boxes should be 2/10^th of an inch square. The spacing between the boxes should be 1/10^th inch.
  
  
• ICR-Related Data: There are some times when the information filled in the ICR field will not be valid. In these cases, it is helpful to add some data to the OCR line to indicate that ICR is not to be performed. In the cases where the ICR data is a meter reading (as is the case above), the bill may be of a special type, where a meter reading is not desired, though the shaded boxes appear on the standard form. The meter reading may not be for the current month, so the billing month could be included on the OCR line for verification. These special cases should be considered while creating the bill so that the OCR line can be designed to include special (numeric) flags that will assist in getting the best performance possible.
  
  
• ICR instructions: Information should be included somewhere on the bill on the importance of properly filling in the ICR boxes. An example of properly filled in boxes would also be helpful.

3. ICR Registration Mark

• Importance of registration mark: When performing the ICR process, the software needs accurate alignment of the ICR boxes to find and interpret the handwriting properly. To provide the best possible read rates, a registration mark printed in black ink should be provided in perfect registration with the ICR box shading. Without this registration mark, the ICR process will suffer a large read rate decline. A loss of 20-30% could occur.
  
  
• Type of mark: The registration mark should be a crossbar made of a vertical and horizontal line, or a corner (as the example above uses). This allows horizontal and vertical adjustment to be done of the image in the digital realm before processing the handwriting. The line should be of medium thickness, enough to provide a clear black line when imaged. Since we generally image documents at 200 DPI, the thickness should be probably about 5-8 pixels wide, making it about .025 to .040 inch wide. Outward from the corner of intersection of these lines, there should be no other printed information for at least 3/8^th inch.
  
  
• Preprinted Forms: When using drop out ink, a preprinted form is often used to eliminate the need for a two color laser production printer. When the document is pre-printed with the ICR boxes and customer logo, etc. the registration mark should be also be printed in black ink with careful attention to the registration of the print of each color. It is critical to keep the relative position of the ICR boxes to the registration mark perfectly consistent.
  
  
• Multiple Registration Marks: There are times when it can be helpful to provide more than one registration mark. When this is done, usually two marks are made – one each at opposite corners of the area where ICR is being performed. This allows the software to provide scaling and rotational correction of the image. In the current line of transports supported by Flex, this is not a large concern, as scanning is nearly always a flat and level operation, and the image pixel density is relatively constant. Scaling would not be a concern. If the installer sees a scanning product in the future for their customer that may provide a less reliable image and may need these types of correction, plan up-front for registration marks at the top-left and bottom-right (or similar) so that we are ready to implement the new hardware down the road with little or no changes to the customer’s document(s).