OCR-A
| Category | Sans-serif |
|---|---|
| Classification | Geometric |
| Commissioned by | American National Standards Institute |
| Foundry | American Type Founders |
| Date released | 1966 |
| Variations | OCR-A Extended |
| Sample | |
OCR-A is a font issued in 1966 and first implemented in 1968. A special font was needed in the early days of computer optical character recognition, when there was a need for a font that could be recognized not only by the computers of that day, but also by humans. OCR-A uses simple, thick strokes to form recognizable characters. The font is monospaced (fixed-width), with the printer required to place glyphs 0.254 cm (0.10 inch) apart, and the reader required to accept any spacing between 0.2286 cm (0.09 inch) and 0.4572 cm (0.18 inch).