The USPS was equipment with a newer OCR technology than the University. However, USPS can probably provide better service on mail delivered directly to it if the same principles as noted below are followed. The 12 point Letter Gothic was the next best. Both Arial and Times New Roman had much lower read rates. To the extent that we can control the font and point size on the addresses of our outgoing mail, use of the better fonts and point sizes noted will permit more savings to the University and will improve the likelihood of more accurate and timely delivery.
Bold print is never better and produces much lower read rates.
The more fancy a font, the lower the read rate. Italics or script should not be used . Point sizes lower than 10 are too small to read well and sizes over 12 points are too large and fat to read well. Many software packages today will also print the bar code at the time an envelope or label is printed. We do NOT want departments to print the bar codes .