MICR

The MICR is a device that can recognise human readable characters printed on documents such as cheques using a special magnetic ink. The reader reads these characters by examining their shapes. Characters are printed in a special font. Each character is formed by a 7 x 10 matrix. The MICR has a magnetic head which can detect the magnetic pattern for each character.

The abbreviation MICR stands for Magnetic Ink Character Recognition. This is a type of data input often found in banks. The bank account number and other details are printed onto bank cheques (USA - checks)in a special font with magnetic ink.

The magnetic characters can be read very quickly and accurately by MICR readers.

Numbers in a special MICR font