MICR Reader
MICR characters are printed on a document in either of the MICR fonts. The ink used in the printing is a magnetic ink or toner, usually containing iron oxide. The MICR text is passed before a MICR reader. The ink in the plane of the paper is first magnetized. Then the characters are passed over a MICR read head, a device similar to the playback head of a tape recorder. As each character passes over the head it produces a unique waveform that can be easily identified by the system.
The use of MICR allows the characters to be read reliably even if they have been overprinted or obscured by other marks, such as cancellation stamps and signature. The error rate for the magnetic scanning of a typical cheque is smaller than with optical character recognition systems. For well printed MICR documents, the "can't read" rate is usually less than 1% while the substitution rate (misread rate) is in the order of 1 per 100,000 characters.
Read more about this topic: Magnetic Ink Character Recognition
Famous quotes containing the word reader:
“She loved Cecil; George made her nervous; will the reader explain to her that the phrases should have been reversed?”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)