OMR technical reference

OMR Barcodes are used for mailing documents with variable page counts. The barcodes are used to ensure that the documents are separated correctly and fed into envelopes by Folding and Inserting Systems.
Besides the lines, ELP can postal optimize your mailing and insert flyers or advertisements on the fly. Based on a database ELP can decide if the document needs to be printed or faxed or e-mailed .

The description of all input options of this window is here.

The OMR barcode tells the inserter to collect the actual drawn piece of paper or to insert the actual plus the already collected pages into an envelope. In order to make the barcode safe, a parity bit may be added. Also an automatic pager numbering ensures that the inserter does not draw several piece of paper at once.

The OMR functionality with ELP provides an easy to use, safe and fully automated way, for OMR barcode printing. For defining all OMR settings you may use the Rule Assistant menu OMR - SET dialog.

The following inserter brands are supported:

Stielow, Hefter, Pitney Bowes, Francotyp-Postalia, Kern, PFE, Neopost

Please note that other manufacturers like Neopost etc. often also support the same type of barcode printing / reading

The easiest way to set the OMR definition is to use in the Configuration Tab the Rule Assistant and there the OMR set menu.

As an Example: Using OMR Barcodes

The barcode lines can be positioned freely around the page, in any orientation and print direction

The OMR lines are by default 7.5 mm long, 0.5 mm wide and distance between each line is exact 4.32 mm. If this specification does not fit your inserter requirements, use the appropriate command keys: OMR_LineWidth, OMR_LineHeight and OMR_LineDistance. All values are measured in millimeters xxxx.xx.

When the code is positioned along the long page side from top to bottom, use the 270° orientation.

Some of the barcodes support page numbering (sequence control), insertion of additional papers, parity checks, eject documents, stop the machine etc. They are usually all configurable.

Like the job splitting, ELP needs a trigger in form of a special escape sequence: <Esc>)s-990Z on each last page to be inserted into the envelope. Last page is seen from the way the machine inserts the papers, so it could be also the first page of the document.

Actually the method of inserting this trigger on that last page is exactly the same as described at job splitting. So these three methods are available:

- Recognizing a specific text only available on last/first page
- If processing single jobs, then evaluate the last page via an own page counter
- Trigger sequence is already inserted / programmed in data stream

If you are not able to insert this sequence directly into the data stream, like for example with MS Word inserting the field 'PRINT 27 ")s-990Z"', use SEARCH_ keys to find a piece of text, which is only used on the last page, and then the ADD_KEY to tell ELP to insert the Control Sequence.

For activating OMR barcodes use the key: OMR_ENABLED and turn it on. Usually the OMR function is dedicated to a specific printer queue, therefore you may first add the queue control in form of a "NEW SECTION" to the ini file. These commands can also be placed into any searched or triggered section.

Here is the listing of the supported machines or strokes. If your machine is not listed, please check if it supports one of the other machines. if not then ask for a quotation to add the OMR marks pattern into our ELP solution. It is not at all expensive.

Once OMR is enabled, the following ELP keys are searched for in every activated Section.

In addition the following commands are available for the OMR specifications where applicable:

In addition the following variables can be used for controlling OMR features while processing the jobs. Some of them can be set by special escape esequences within in the document, and they will be resetted after the page is printed, or can be set externally if each job contains only one document.

Additional variables for using Hefter SI 2200 and SI 2250, Pitney Bowes Sequence and Hefter SI 3300 and SI 3500: Same way desribed as above. Special marks will be placed only on the page with the inserter (Group end) mark.

As indicated above, there are two modes for printing OMR barcodes:

• Within one huge print job, then do not use the key OMR_CollectJobs
• One job after the other, but all jobs are collected and then moved over to the inserter. For this case use the key OMR_CollectJobs!

For the second method ensure that nobody else prints a job in between, or, if doing so, that this job is not printed through the OMR enabled queue AND of course prints to another output tray. Otherwise the inserter will stop when a page without OMR codes sneaked between.

Once the key OMR_CollectJobs is used, ELP will store after each print job the actual sequence control number of the last page into a file named like this: #PRINTERNAME#.OMR in the Workpath folder (default: C:\ProgramData\Welp). The variable #PRNTERNAME# of course is resolved with the name of the printer where the OMR marks are printed

You may also use the ELP_Command R#; for generating copies of each page. You even may insert different forms etc. The routine will handle to put the insertion command on the last page of the last copy. Never use ELP_Command K#;

VERY IMPORTANT when using OMR codes in collection job mode:

• Never activate different types of OMR codes for one queue, unless you do not use the key OMR_CollectJobs .
• Once the inserter is finished with a complete staple of paper and if the machine needs to start always with sequence count of zero, do this:
  Ensure, that for the next job the OMR page counter is set to zero! This can be done by erasing the file #PRINTERNAME#.omr in the Workpath folder (default: C:\ProgramData\Welp). To automate this, you may write a simple batch file, which removes that file. The content of that batch file is most likely this:
  del c:\ProgramData\welp\#PRINTERNAME#.omr
  In order to perform such a command, use for example notepad, type the command in the first line, and store it in a filename with the ending .bat instead of .txt. Then you may generate a link to that file on your desktop and every time the file needs to be erased, simply double click on the link icon.
  Of course this file needs to be erased as well every time your envelope inserter device is powered on. But ELP itself is deleting it, just in case the stored value would have been zero.

The Variables #OMR_PFE_SELECTFEED#, #OMR_PFE_DIVERT#, #OMR_OUTTRAY#, #OMR_ADDMOVEOUT#, #OMR_DONTCLOSE# and #OMR_ADDONFEEDERBITS# can be used on a document level. Once set for the job, they will be used to add the related function on the actual page / last page with the insertion mark. They are all set back to zero after being used.

Finally there is a way to NOT print the OMR marks on certain pages. For example if only the first page is duplex and the remaining pages are simplex, then do not print the marks on the second (back) page. See Variable #OMR_NOOMRONTHISPAGE# in table above.

So the feeder bits will be always added to the bar list, even on the first pages, where they are not really needed. On Pitney/Hefter, they will be added only as bars on the pages with the insertion mark (last one), on all other ones they are moved as blanks

This results into 2 ways of using them:

1. Example: The print job has only one document, maybe it was split before. In that case any triggered rule can be used, like that:

   [If less then 3 pages add a sheet from the feeder]

   ; Note: PreParsing must be set ON in the rule GLOBAL

   Trigger_Binary=1
   Trigger_Variable=#PREPARSEPAGECOUNT#<3

   ; For Francotyp 0,1,2,3 is possible.

   Variable=#OMR_PFE_SELECTFEED#:1

2. Example: If all mails should contain one or 2 pages from the feeder, then simply use a trigger, which can be found on all pages:

   [Add on all letters the 2 pages from feeder]

   ; normally this can be found on all windows based stream on top of any page

   OutSearch_Binary=\x1B&l
   Variable=#OMR_PFE_SELECTFEED#:3

   
   Note: Outsearch method will only work, if the pages contains more than 2 kb of data.

Another method is to add the ELP special escape sequences in the data stream for drawing selective papers: Esc)s-989Z for Tray 1 and Esc)s-988Z for Tray 2.

If this method is also not possible, the job needs to be split

Sometimes special jobs need to be sent to different output queues, e.g. for postal settings like less and more then 3 pages or local country and foreign letters. In conjunction with the sequence control, ELP needs to have a sequence counter not only for the device but also for the outtray. In this case please define the variable: #OMR_OUTTRAY# before the OMR section is evaluated.

If that variable is defined, ELP will add its content to the final #PRINTERNAME#.omr file name. So it is unique for that case.

Example: If the queue name is called OMR and the content of the variable #OMR_OUTTRAY# is tray1 then the file name for the last sequence control number in the Workpath folder (default: C:\ProgramData\Welp) is OMR.OMR_tray1.

Related articles: OMR set menu, Full OMR Examples, Postal optimization and OMR marking