What is a Magnetic Ink Character?

Magnetic Ink Character (MIC) is a number, letter or symbol, usually used in conjunction with the introduction of magnetic ink technology. This technology is used primarily by the banking sector for reading and sorting out a check with a process called Magnetic Ink Character Recognition or MICR. MIC are printed at the bottom of the MICR line and usually 3 or 4 rows of numbers and symbols.

   History
   1. In 1960, most American banks do read standardization and universalization of the capacity and sort checks by the MICR technology. This means that different letters must be in the MICR line at the bottom of the paper checks are made. General Electric, which owns the patent for the MICR line, asked a staff member, George Jacobs, to create a unique font on the MIC and are used with MICR technology. Jacobi comes with the font E-13B for MIC. The font is still used for most controls in America today.
      Importance
   2. MIC allows banks to better facilitate and standardize how they treat customer checks. Reader / sorter machines take the banks, with MIC magnetization and then sort the checks into their appropriate destination. Since the discovery of the MIC check fraud incidents has decreased. That's because it is very expensive and difficult to create or modify the MIC. MIC and the emergence of errors in reading the tests, which are very rare. Most major banks handling thousands or even millions of customer bank accounts and even the smallest mistake can create disaster. With the advent of the MIC in collaboration with the machine reader / sorters, the frequency of errors in check reading drastically reduced. A reader / sorter machines have a failure rate of less than 1 percent.
      Features
   3. MIC not like the font you use when you type in your word processor would. It is also printed in ink MIC would you use to print text from your word processing program. Ink to print the MIC is a toner, iron oxide, that the ink contains magnetized. Iron oxide is a chemical compound of iron and oxygen produced. The ink used for printing ink contains iron oxide MIC about 50 percent more than the default printer ink. If MIC is printed with ink containing iron oxide, iron oxide does not automatically MIC is only possible to become a magnet MIC by the reader / sorter machine. If a trial is in the reader / sorter machine is inserted, the machine will activate the magnetization, which is part of the MIC. MIC is then passed through a magnetic read head in the machine. Magnetic read head and then creates an electromagnetic field in the MIC now be detected and read by the reader / sorter machine.
      Identification
   4. Most MIC are printed in E-13B font. Font E-13B can be determined using different methods. First look at the writings a bit "stupid". There are no curves in writings as we see in most fonts like Times New Roman and Helvetica, are used to. Font E-13B do not come in standard packages for word processing documents. So, if the E-13B font in its own checks or other documents that you need to use the font from the Internet or from the hard disk software download.

      Font E-13B only contain 14 characters. The reason is because it was specifically for the MIC, which almost always created numbers and symbols. E-13B font library contains the numbers 0-9 and 4 symbols for the state: Transit, Amount, On-Us and Dash. These symbols can usually in the MICR line of checks and bank used by the reader make / sorter machines for further identification checks are found.

      are E-13B font that is used for the MIC is not "played" with. This should be a font of static. In other words, you can not set the font size 46 points, aquamarine, with shadow effects. Take your checkbook and look at the bottom to verify one. They were 3 or 4 rows of numbers and symbols at the bottom of the can, using the E-13B font is.
      Test
   5. Some people and businesses choose to print their own checks. If you check this option, you should familiarize with the MIC and how they are used in the MICR line. It is very important if you MICR checks whether the line is very precise print. to make even the slightest mistake by you or your printer to create the MIC it impossible to read from the bank reader / sorter machines, so you cancel the check.