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POSTNET is a barcode symbology that is used by the United States Postal Service to assist in directing mail. A bar code (also barcode) is an optical Machine-readable representation of data Also known as processual symbolic analysis, symbology was developed by Victor Turner in the mid-1970s to refer to the use of symbols within cultural contexts in The ZIP Code or ZIP+4 code is encoded in half- and full-height bars. The ZIP code is the system of Postal codes used by the United States Postal Service (USPS Most often, the delivery point is added, usually being the last two digits of the address or PO box number. In a postal System, a delivery point (sometimes DP) is a single mailbox or other place at which Mail is delivered In Mathematics and Computer science, a digit is a symbol (a number symbol e An address is a Code and abstract concept expressing the fixed location of a home business or other building on the earth's surface A post office box (often abbreviated PO Box or PO Box) is a uniquely-addressable lockable box located on the premises of a Post office station

The barcode starts and ends with a full bar (often called a guard rail or frame bar and represented as the letter "S" in the USPS TrueType Font) and has a check digit after the ZIP or ZIP+4. TrueType is an Outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe 's Type 1 fonts A check digit is a form of Redundancy check used for Error detection, the decimal equivalent of a binary Checksum. The check digit is calculated as follows:

1. Add up the digits, including the delivery point code if it is being used. (Zeroes are zero, not eleven. ) If you are sending a letter to somewhere in Young America, Minnesota, you might be sending to 55555-1237, which would have the sum of 38.
2. Find the remainder of this number when it is divided by 10, in this case 8. This could also be called the sum modulo 10. (Note that when summing the digits, any leading 1 in the current sum can just be discarded. )
3. Subtract the sum modulo 10 from 10. Continuing with the example, 10 - 8 = 2. The check digit is therefore 2.
4. The sum of the ZIP, ZIP+4, or ZIP+4+delivery point digits and the check digit, modulo 10, should be zero. Continuing with the example, (5+5+5+5+5+1+2+3+7+2) mod 10 = 0.

The encoding table is shown on the right.

Each individual digit is represented by a set of five bars, two of which are full bars (i. e. two-out-of-five code). In Telecommunication, a two-out-of-five code is an m of n code that provides exactly ten possible combinations and thus is popular for representing decimal digits The full bars represent "on" bits in a pseudo-binary code in which the places represent, from left to right: 7, 4, 2, 1, 0. The binary numeral system, or base-2 number system, is a Numeral system that represents numeric values using two symbols usually 0 and 1. (Though in this scheme, zero is encoded as 11 decimal, or "binary" 11000. )

Contents 1 Example 2 Barcode formats 3 Planned Obsolescence 4 See also 5 References

Example

The above-mentioned example of 55555-1237 yields:

1. Sum is 38
2. The check digit is therefore 2
3. The data encoded will be 5555512372

Together with the initial and terminal frame bars, this would be represented as:

Note that the Delivery Point is often added after the ZIP+4 and before the check digit, in which case the computation of the check digit includes the ZIP+4 and the Delivery Point.

Barcode formats

There have been 4 formats of Postnet barcodes used by the Postal Service:

A 5 digit (plus check digit) barcode, containing the basic ZIP Code only, referred to as the "A" code. 32 bars total.

A 6 digit (plus check digit) barcode, containing the last 2 digits of the ZIP Code and the 4 digits of the ZIP+4 Code, referred to as a "B" code. Possibly 37 bars total. In the early stages of Postal automated mail processing the B code was used to "upgrade" mail that had been coded only with a 5-digit "A" code. This barcode was only found on mail that received a 5-digit barcode on the initial coding by an OCR. Now obsolete.

A 9 digit (plus check digit) barcode, containing the ZIP Code and ZIP+4 Code, referred to as the "C" code. 52 bars total. The 9-digit barcode enabled the sorting of mail to the individual delivery carrier, and in some cases into a semblance of delivery sequence.

An 11 digit (plus check digit) barcode, containing the ZIP Code, ZIP+4 Code, and the delivery point code. 62 bars total. This is usually referred to as the DPBC, or Delivery Point Bar Code. This is the predominant barcode in use currently (as of 2005), and it enables the Postal Service to sort mail into delivery point (address) sequence. Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. ^[1]

Planned Obsolescence

POSTNET is being deprecated, replaced by OneCode ACS which combines all previous Postal Service barcodes and marking into a single barcode. OneCodeSOLUTION Barcode is a mailing Barcode used by the United States Postal Service (USPS Beginning in 2009 OneCode ACS will be required for mail to qualify for automation discounts. OneCodeSOLUTION Barcode is a mailing Barcode used by the United States Postal Service (USPS ^[2]

See also

• Postal Alpha Numeric Encoding Technique (PLANET)

References

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