Patent ID: 7813833

Claim:
A system for automated mail preparation, comprising: a mail piece handling unit for handling a series of prepared mail pieces, each mail piece having a plurality of machine readable indicia; a transport device for transporting mail pieces from the handling unit in a predetermined first path; a scanner in the first path for reading at least some of the machine readable indicia from each mail piece, wherein the machine readable indicia comprises sender, addressee and article identifying information; a return receipt transport device for transporting return receipts in a predetermined second path; at least one printer in the second path for printing sender and addressee information on the return receipt, the printer being connected to the scanner for directly receiving imaging information from the scanner based on the sender and addressee information read from each mail piece by the scanner and printing the associated sender and addressee information in predetermined areas of a respective return receipt, wherein each return receipt is attached to a mail piece in the series of prepared mail pieces, and wherein the sender and addressee information for printing each of the return receipts is retrieved directly from each mail piece to which the return receipt is affixed rather than from data stored in a computer, and wherein no information is retrieved from data storage in order to print information on the return receipt, and such that all the information necessary to be printed on the return receipt is retrieved directly from the mail piece to which the return receipt is to be affixed immediately prior to attaching the return receipt to the mail piece, without any intervening data retrieval step; the first and second paths joining at a junction after the printer; and an affixer at the junction between the first and second paths for affixing each printed return receipt to the respective mail piece from which the indicia were read by the scanner.