Typeface · Other
OCR-B
OCR-B is a monospace font developed in 1968 by Adrian Frutiger for Monotype by following the European Computer Manufacturer's Association standard.
About OCR-B
OCR-B is a monospace font developed in 1968 by Adrian Frutiger for Monotype by following the European Computer Manufacturer's Association standard. Its function was to facilitate the optical character recognition operations by specific electronic devices, originally for financial and bank-oriented uses. It was accepted as the world standard in 1973. It follows the ISO 1073-2:1976 (E) standard, refined in 1979 ("letterpress" design, size I). It includes all ASCII symbols as well as other symbols needed in the bank environment. It is widely used for the human-readable digits in UPC/EAN barcodes. It is also used for machine-readable passports. It shares that purpose with OCR-A, but it is easier for the human eye and brain to read and it has a less technical look than OCR-A.
From the Wikipedia article “OCR-B”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Using OCR-B in a book
Test this typeface at both text and display sizes before committing; print a sample page at final size.
Commercial typefaces require a licence that covers embedding in PDFs and ebooks; check the foundry's licence before you publish.
Sources & data
- Structured data from Wikidata Q651105 (CC0).
- Summary text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).