Understanding Postal: Get Smart

The IMB holds nearly three times the data of POSTNET and can be printed using the same technology — the key to its attraction to the USPS and mail users. It can’t be deciphered by the human eye, however, which raises new quality-control challenges in mail production.

While the USPS provides software and fonts to produce the IMB, and most postal software vendors have or will incorporate it into their software, conversion’s not as simple as flipping a switch. More data is required to generate the IMB. The process is much more complex and may require extensive system or software modifications. Technical information and resources are available from the USPS’s technical information Web site (http://ribbs.usps.gov/onecodesolution).