OCR-A#Additional characters

The OCR-A font was standardized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)

as ANSI X3.17-1981. X3.4 has since become the INCITS and the OCR-A standard is now called ISO 1073-1:1976.

In 1968, American Type Founders produced OCR-A, one of the first optical character recognition typefaces to meet the criteria set by the U.S. Bureau of Standards. The design is simple so that it can be easily read by a machine, but it is more difficult for the human eye to read.

As metal type gave way to computer-based typesetting, Tor Lillqvist used Metafont to describe the OCR-A font.{{when|date=November 2017}} That definition was subsequently improved by Richard B. Wales. Their work is available from CTAN.[https://ctan.org/pkg/ocr-a The MetaFont sources for OCR-A from CTAN]

To make the free version of the font more accessible to users of Microsoft Windows, John Sauter converted the Metafont definitions to TrueType using potrace and FontForge in 2004.[http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=121297 John Sauter's 2004 OCR-A font from those MetaFont sources] In 2007, Gürkan Sengün created a Debian package from this implementation.[https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=fonts-ocr-a The fonts-ocr-a Debian packages, based on John Sauter's SourceForge project] In 2008. Luc Devroye corrected the vertical positioning in John Sauter's implementation, and fixed the name of lower case z.[http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-48501.html Luc Devroye's account of his changes to John Sauter's implementation of OCR-A]

Independently, Matthew Skala[https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/ Matthew Skala's home page] used mftrace[http://packages.debian.org/mftrace The mftrace Debian package] to convert the Metafont definitions to TrueType format in 2006. In 2011 he released a new version created by rewriting the Metafont definitions to work with METATYPE1, generating outlines directly without an intermediate tracing step. On September 27, 2012, he updated his implementation to version 0.2.[https://tsukurimashou.org/ocr.php.en Matthew Skala's 2012 OCR-A font from the MetaFont sources]

In addition to these free implementations of OCR-A, there are also implementations sold by several vendors. As a joke, Tobias Frere-Jones in 1995 created Estupido-Espezial, a redesign with swashes and a long s. It was used in a "technology"-themed section of Rolling Stone.{{cite web |last1=Hoefler |first1=Jonathan |title=Two Fools |url=https://www.typography.com/blog/two-fools |website=Hoefler & Co. |access-date=18 September 2021}}{{cite magazine |title=Technology, Fall '97 |magazine=Rolling Stone |issue=774 |date=1997-11-27 |page=59}}

Maxitype designed the OCR-X typeface—based on the OCR-A typeface with OpenType features, alien/technology-themed dingbats and available in six weights (Thin, Light, Regular, Medium, Bold, Black).{{cite web|title=OCR-X typeface|url=https://maxitype.com/typeface/ocr-x/|publisher=Maxitype|access-date=24 September 2023}}

Japanese typeface foundry Visual Design Laboratory designed a typeface for Simplified Chinese characters named Jieyouti, based on the OCR-A typeface and available in five weights (Light, Regular, Medium, Semi Bold, Bold).{{cite web|title=Jieyouti typeface|url=https://www.vdl.co.jp/font-hosei-vdl/yotag.html|publisher=Visual Design Laboratory|access-date=25 March 2025|language=ja}}

File:Verrechnungsscheck, WestLB, Landeshauptkasse Düsseldorf, 2004.jpg. The ⑂, ⑀ and ⑁ characters are used to delimit particular fields in the machine-readable line (shown here partially redacted).]]

Although optical character recognition technology has advanced to the point where such simple fonts are no longer necessary,{{cite journal |journal=Data Processing Magazine |title=The History of OCR |volume=12 |year=1970 |page=46}} the OCR-A font has remained in use. Its usage remains widespread in the encoding of checks around the world. Some lock box companies still insist that the account number and amount owed on a bill return form be printed in OCR-A.{{Cite web |url=https://www.pnc.com/content/dam/pnc-com/pdf/corporateandinstitutional/Treasury%20Management/Healthcare/078_Patient_Pay_Lockbox_3-13.pdf |title=Description of a lockbox service, note "The bill contains an invoice and a statement with patient information contained in a scannable Optical Character Recognition (OCR) line. The OCR line is similar in appearance to that found on a credit card statement or telephone bill." |access-date=2015-07-30 |archive-date=2017-03-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170301092812/https://www.pnc.com/content/dam/pnc-com/pdf/corporateandinstitutional/Treasury%20Management/Healthcare/078_Patient_Pay_Lockbox_3-13.pdf |url-status=dead }} Also, because of its unusual look, it is sometimes used in advertising and display graphics.

Notably, it is used for the subtitles in films and television series such as Blacklist and for the main titles in The Pretender. Additionally, OCR-A is used{{how|date=December 2022}} for the films Crimson Tide and 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. It was also used for the logo, branding, and marketing material of the children's toy line Hexbug.

A font is a set of character shapes, or glyphs. For a computer to use a font, each glyph must be assigned a code point in a character set. When OCR-A was being standardized the usual character coding was the American Standard Code for Information Interchange or ASCII. Not all of the glyphs of OCR-A fit into ASCII, and for five of the characters there were alternate glyphs, which might have suggested the need for a second font. However, for convenience and efficiency all of the glyphs were expected to be accessible in a single font using ASCII coding, with the additional characters placed at coding points that would otherwise have been unused.

The modern descendant of ASCII is Unicode, also known as ISO 10646. Unicode contains ASCII and has special provisions for OCR characters, so some implementations of OCR-A have looked to Unicode for

guidance on character code assignments.

The ISO standard ISO 2033:1983, and the corresponding Japanese Industrial Standard JIS X 9010:1984 (originally JIS C 6229–1984), define character encodings for OCR-A, OCR-B and E-13B. For OCR-A, they define a modified 7-bit ASCII set (also known by its ISO-IR number ISO-IR-91) including only uppercase letters, digits, a subset of the punctuation and symbols, and some additional symbols.{{cite iso-ir |number=91 |title=Japanese OCR-A Graphic Character Set |sponsor=ISO/TC97/SC2 |sponsor-link=ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2#History |date=1985-08-01}} Codes which are redefined relative to ASCII, as opposed to simply omitted, are listed below:

Additionally, the long vertical mark (Image:OCR-A char Long Vertical Mark.svg) is encoded at 0x7C, corresponding to the ASCII vertical bar (|).

{{Main|Optical Character Recognition (Unicode block)}}

The following characters have been defined for control purposes and are now in the "Optical Character Recognition" Unicode range 2440–245F:

Image:OCR-A char digits.svg

Image:OCR-A char unaccented capital letters.svg

Image:OCR-A char unaccented small letters.svg

All implementations of OCR-A use U+0020 for space,

U+0030 through U+0039 for the decimal digits,

U+0041 through U+005A for the unaccented upper case letters, and

U+0061 through U+007A for the unaccented lower case letters.

In addition to the digits and unaccented letters, many of the characters of OCR-A have obvious code points in ASCII.

Of those that do not, most, including all of OCR-A's accented letters, have obvious code points in Unicode.

Linotype[https://www.linotype.com/1085573/ocr-a-regular-product.html Linotype's OCR-A font: choose Character Map to see the characters and their coding] coded the remaining characters of OCR-A as follows:

The fonts that descend from the work of Tor Lillqvist and Richard B. Wales define four characters not in OCR-A to fill out the ASCII character set. These shapes use the same style as the OCR-A character shapes. They are:

Linotype also defines additional characters.[https://www.linotype.com/900974/ocr-a-extended-product.html Linotype's OCR-A Extended font: choose Character Map then Show all]

Some implementations do not use the above code point assignments for some characters.

The PrecisionID implementation of OCR-A has the following non-standard code points:[http://www.precisionid.com/tutorials/OCR_Font_User_Manual.pdf PrecisionID User Guide for the PrecisionID implementation of the OCR-A font]

• OCR Hook at U+007E
• OCR Chair at U+00C1
• OCR Fork at U+00C2
• Euro Sign at U+0080

The Barcodesoft implementation of OCR-A has the following non-standard code points:[http://www.barcode-soft.com/ocr_font.aspx Information page for the Barcode implementation of the OCR-A font][http://www.ozgrid.com/barcodes/ocr-font.htm Another source of information about the Barcode fonts]

• OCR Hook at U+0060
• OCR Chair at U+007E
• OCR Fork at U+005F
• Long Vertical Mark at U+007C (agrees with Linotype)
• Character Erase at U+0008

The Morovia implementation of OCR-A has the following non-standard code points:[http://morovia.com/font/ocr.asp Information page for the Morovia implementation of the OCR-A font]

• OCR Hook at U+007E (agrees with PrecisionID)
• OCR Chair at U+00F0
• OCR Fork at U+005F (agrees with Barcodesoft)
• Long Vertical Mark at U+007C (agrees with Linotype)

The IDAutomation implementation of OCR-A has the following non-standard code points:[http://www.idautomation.com/ocr-a-and-ocr-b-fonts/#product-information Information page for the IDAutomation implementation of the OCR-A and OCR-B fonts]

• OCR Hook at U+007E (agrees with PrecisionID)
• OCR Chair at U+00C1 (agrees with PrecisionID)
• OCR Fork at U+00C2 (agrees with PrecisionID)
• OCR Belt Buckle at U+00C3

• [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000Y2U4OG Hardcopy of ISO 1073-1:1976, distributed through ANSI, from Amazon.com]
• [http://www.techstreet.com/cgi-bin/detail?product_id=56168 ISO 1073-1 is also available from Techstreet, who distributes standards for ANSI and ISO]

• Magnetic ink character recognition
• Optical character recognition
• Westminster (typeface), a typeface designed to resemble the visual appearance of MICR.
• OCR-B

{{Reflist|2}}

{{Commons category|OCR-A}}

• [http://myfonts.wordpress.com/2006/09/18/typographic-abbreviations-series-1-ocr/ Introductory article about OCR fonts]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070927234916/http://www.nssn.org/search/DetailResults.aspx?docid=337976&selnode= Link standard ANSI INCITS 17-1981 (R2002)]
• [http://www.open-std.org/JTC1/SC2/WG3/docs/n504.pdf Background on ISO work involving OCR-A]
• [https://www.unicode.org/charts/ Unicode code charts]
• [http://www-01.ibm.com/software/globalization/gcgid/ocrsym.html IBM GCGID mapping]

{{Monospaced fonts}}

{{Free and open-source typography}}

{{Typography terms}}

{{ISO standards}}

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Category:OCR typefaces

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Category:Computer-related introductions in 1968