MICR Toner

MICR stands for Magnetic Ink Character Recognition. It is a technology used primarily by the banking industry. It was developed as a way for both humans and computers to easily read the same characters. The best example of the technology is the account number and routing number at the bottom of your checks, which is printed with MICR toner. InkTechnologies.com has a wide variety of MICR toner cartridges available, and includes free ground shipping for orders over $50 to U.S. contiguous 48 states.

An MICR toner cartridge is similar to a laser toner cartridge, but the toner is magnetized and is available for many brands such as Xerox toner, HP toner, Dell toner and more. The toner includes a mix of iron oxide that meets ANSI specifications for the standards of readability. This allows a scanning machine to read the magnetic characters rather than having to read the characters 'visually', as in optical character recognition. This is much more reliable, and MICR characters can be read by the machine even if a stamp or other ink is obscuring the numbers. It is also extremely fast, able to scan many checks very quickly. If you have questions about magnetic toner, InkTechnologies.com has representatives available by email or phone.

Along with specialized toner, the MICR system also uses standardized fonts, ensuring that any MICR machine will be able to read a check correctly. The two major fonts used are the E-13B and CMC-7 fonts. E-13B is the font most commonly used in the United States. It includes the numbers 0 through 9, and also includes four special characters that represent banking terms, which are Transit, Amount, On-Us, and Dash. In other words, the entire check could not be printed with just the E-13B font, only the banking numbers.

Because the MICR characters will be read by a very specific machine, it is also important that they are spaced correctly. The ANSI specification dictates things like line spacing and positioning to ensure that characters are read correctly. Any printing that doesn't meet these specifications could potentially be rejected.

While printing MICR documents used to be a costly process, MICR machines have now become affordable enough for even small banks to do their own printing. This has created a growing market for MICR toner and supplies. MICR toner cartridges can be much more expensive than typical laser toner cartridges. For this reason, it can save a lot of money to buy compatible cartridges, instead of the most costly OEM toner cartridges directly from the manufacturer. InkTechnologies.com ensures the quality of its compatible cartridges with its 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. There is no need to worry about Secure shopping, as InkTechnologies.com is McAfee certified, and a member of the Better Business Bureau.