Rule Calls for Upside Down Addressing

-- Graphic Arts Online, 4/30/2008 8:15:00 AM

As the U.S. Postal Service's highly automated Flats Sequencing Systems (FSS) ramps up, printers of magazines and catalogs have until March 2009 to adjust systems to inkjet address labels upside down. Mailers of magazines and catalogs will be required to arrange presorted bundles so addresses are readily readable by carriers. In addition to aligning preparation with FSS, these revised standards will help to validate bundle contents and expedite manual bundle distribution, the USPS says. (See e-GAM 3/4/08)

"So addresses need to be printed upside down," Clarence Banks, postal affairs manager at RR Donnelley Logistics, told attendees during a "Postal Issues & Impact" session at this week's Offset and Beyond Conference near Chicago. To make manual sorting easier for mail carriers, the labels must be right reading when the publications are upside down, Banks said, though still appearing in the usual spot on the bottom of the front or back cover page.

He also discussed the Intelligent Mail Barcode's 0.125´´ minimum height from the top of the recipient's name, effective May 2009. This height requirement is problematic because it represents the maximum height available on most inkjet-addressing printers. The USPS wants a high level of readability, of course, but "we think more tolerance is necessary—that there needs to be more leniency regarding penalties," Banks noted, adding that he is confident a compromise may be made.

"It's a trade-off because printers don't want to slow down [their equipment]," he said. If no compromise is reached, inkjet OEMs will need to step up with a work-around solution, Banks said.