Can I make the US Mail address bar codes in my word processor?

Factual Questions
1

They say mail is getting slower, now 3 days from LA to Seattle.

Whenever I send mail, I print the envelope on my printer to ensure that the ZIP can be machine read.

I would like to go the next step and put the little bar code at the bottom, like the utilities use on their billing return envelopes.

Is this like a font or an add-on program I can run in Word?

2

WordPerfect Office 200 does this easily, I can’t imagine MS Word doesn’t. Tried searching in Help for ‘bar code’? In Corel, it becomes available when I go into envelope addressing mode. I’ve used it for mailing bills and never had a complaint.

-mdf

3

In Word97 (instructions similar for Word for the Mac and Word2000):

  1. Select Tools > Envelopes and Labels… from the menu bar
  2. Click the Envelopes tab
  3. Type the destination (including ZIP, ZIP+4 is even better) in the Delivery Address box
  4. Type your address in the Return Address box
  5. Click Options
  6. Check Delivery Point Bar Code
  7. Click Ok
  8. Click Print
4

There’s a font out there somewhere called code USPS, which I always thought stood for US Postal Service, but maybe I’m wrong.

It’s not unlike code 39 where each character has a fixed representation (unlike UPC/EAN barcodes, where one half is inverted)

5

My WordPerfect for Windows 6.1 has that feature. It’s pretty nifty.

6

I have the specs here and it is not as straightforward as you think. It is called POSTNET (POSTal Numeric Encoding Technique). There are several formats, ZIP, ZIP+4, ZIP+4+delivery point, etc. But note that even if you know the relevan digits, you need to add the framebars and the correction character. In other words, there is no “font” which can translate directly to my zipcode 20018 as you need to add the two frame bars and correction character. I suppose it could be possible for the word processing program to do this but I am not sure they would have the capabiity to do this calculation. I have always done it by hand. You can call the USPS and get a publication with the details or let me know if you want further details.

7

Hey, I followed paperbackwriter’s instructions and it works!

Just for the curious: how to read a POSTNET code:

The two end, long bars are just for framing, no info. Every number has five bars: 1-sssll, 2sslsl, 3 sslls, 4 slssl, 5slsls, 6 sllss, 7 lsssl, 8 lssls, 9 lslss, 0 llsss.

depending on the number of characters you can have 5 (ZIP), 9 (ZIP+4), 11 (ZIP+4+delivery point) PLUS the correction character which is for error checking and makes the total sum a multiple of 10.