Optical Character Recognition (Unicode block)

Optical Character Recognition is a Unicode block containing signal characters for OCR and MICR standards.

Optical Character Recognition
RangeU+2440..U+245F
(32 code points)
PlaneBMP
ScriptsCommon
Symbol setsOCR controls
Assigned11 code points
Unused21 reserved code points
Source standardsISO 2033
Unicode version history
1.0.0 (1991)11 (+11)
Unicode documentation
Code chart ∣ Web page
Note: [1][2]

Block
Optical Character Recognition[1][2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+244x ⑀ ⑁ ⑂ ⑃ ⑄ ⑅ ⑆ ⑇ ⑈ ⑉ ⑊
U+245x
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 15.1
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

Subheadings

The Optical Character Recognition block has three informal subheadings (groupings) within its character collection: OCR-A, MICR, and OCR.[3]

OCR-A
Further information: OCR-A
A partly redacted German cheque, showing use of ⑂, ⑀ and ⑁ in the machine-readable line

The OCR-A subheading contains six characters taken from the OCR-A font described in the ISO 1073-1:1976 standard: U+2440 ⑀ OCR HOOK, U+2441 ⑁ OCR CHAIR, U+2442 ⑂ OCR FORK, U+2443 ⑃ OCR INVERTED FORK, U+2444 ⑄ OCR BELT BUCKLE, and U+2445 ⑅ OCR BOW TIE. The OCR bow tie is given the informative alias "unique asterisk".

MICR
Further information: Magnetic ink character recognition
A British style cheque for a fictional bank, showing use of ⑆, ⑈ and ⑉ in the machine-readable line

The MICR subheading contains four punctuation characters for bank cheque identifiers, taken from the magnetic ink character recognition E-13B font (codified in the ISO 1004:1995 standard): U+2446 ⑆ OCR BRANCH BANK IDENTIFICATION, U+2447 ⑇ OCR AMOUNT OF CHECK, U+2448 ⑈ OCR DASH, and U+2449 ⑉ OCR CUSTOMER ACCOUNT NUMBER.

The latter two characters are misnamed: their names were inadvertently switched when they were named in the 1993 (first) edition of ISO/IEC 10646,[4] a mistake which had been present since Unicode 1.0.0.[5] Although their formal names remain unchanged due to the Unicode stability policy, they both have corrected normative aliases: U+2448 ⑈ is MICR ON US SYMBOL, and U+2449 ⑉ is MICR DASH SYMBOL[6] (the standard notes that "the Unicode character names include several misnomers").

These symbols had previously been encoded by the ISO-IR-98 encoding defined by ISO 2033:1983, in which they were simply named SYMBOL ONE through SYMBOL FOUR.[7] All four characters have informative aliases in the Unicode charts: "transit", "amount", "on us", and "dash" respectively.

OCR
Further information: JIS X 9008

The OCR subheading consists of a single character: U+244A ⑊ OCR DOUBLE BACKSLASH.

History

The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Optical Character Recognition block:

VersionFinal code points[lower-alpha 1]CountL2 IDWG2 IDDocument
1.0.0U+2440..244A11(to be determined)
L2/10-416RMoore, Lisa (2010-11-09), "Consensus 125-C39", UTC #125 / L2 #222 Minutes, Create two formal aliases, U+2448 MICR ON US SYMBOL and U+2449 MICR DASH SYMBOL for Unicode 6.1.
N4103"T.3. Optical Character Recognition", Unconfirmed minutes of WG 2 meeting 58, 2012-01-03
L2/22-065Whistler, Ken (2022-04-13), "Opt Subject: Unicode 14.0 "Optical Character Recognition" code chart [Affects U+2447]", Editorial Committee Report and Recommendations for UTC #171Meeting
  1. Proposed code points and characters names may differ from final code points and names

References
  1. "Unicode character database". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  2. "Enumerated Versions of The Unicode Standard". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  3. "Unicode Code Charts: Optical Character Recognition" (PDF). The Unicode Standard, Version 6.3. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
  4. ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2/WG 2 (2012-01-03). "T.3. Optical Character Recognition". Unconfirmed minutes of WG 2 meeting 58 (PDF). p. 29. SC2 N4188 / WG2 N4103. These Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) symbols are used by banks on checks. The names of these characters were inadvertently mixed up in the 1993 edition of ISO/IEC 10646.
  5. "3.8: Block-by-Block Charts" (PDF). The Unicode Standard. version 1.0. Unicode Consortium.
  6. Freytag, Asmus; McGowan, Rick; Whistler, Ken (2017-04-10). Known Anomalies in Unicode Character Names (4 ed.). Unicode Consortium. Unicode Technical Note #27.
  7. ISO/TC97/SC2 (1985-08-01). ISO-IR-98: E13B Graphic Character Set (PDF). ITSCJ/IPSJ.
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