Barcode Glossary - O

OCR OCR-affixed / Odd Parity Character
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OCR

Optical Character Recognition.
Often abbreviated OCR, optical character recognition refers to the branch of computer science that involves reading text from paper and translating the images into a form that the computer can manipulate (for example, into ASCII codes).

OCR-affixed

Prior to the use of the JAN symbology in Japan, many industries and retailers already employed POS through the use of OCR. When introducing the JAN bar code, both the JAN symbol and the OCR letters had to be shown in order to coordinate the between the change. This is called an OCR-affixed JAN symbol.