The Postal Alpha Numeric Encoding Technique (PLANET)

barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...

was used by the

United States Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U ...

to identify and track pieces of mail during delivery - the Post Office's "CONFIRM" services. It was fully superseded by

Intelligent Mail Barcode The Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMb) is a 65-bar barcode for use on mail in the United States. The term "Intelligent Mail" refers to services offered by the United States Postal Service for domestic mail delivery. The IM barcode is intended to provi ...

by January 28, 2013. A PLANET barcode appears either 12 or 14 digits long. The barcode: * identifies mailpiece class and shape * identifies the Confirm Subscriber ID * includes up to 6 digits of additional information that the Confirm subscriber chose, such as a mailing number, mailing campaign ID or customer ID * ends with a

check digit A check digit is a form of redundancy check used for error detection on identification numbers, such as bank account numbers, which are used in an application where they will at least sometimes be input manually. It is analogous to a binary parity ...

POSTNET POSTNET (Postal Numeric Encoding Technique) is a barcode symbology used by the United States Postal Service to assist in directing mail. The ZIP Code or ZIP+4 code is encoded in half- and full-height bars. Most often, the delivery point is add ...

, PLANET encodes the data in half- and full-height bars. Also like POSTNET, PLANET always starts and ends with a full bar (often called a guard rail), and each individual digit is represented by a set of five bars using a

two-out-of-five code A two-out-of-five code is a constant-weight code that provides exactly ten possible combinations of two bits, and is thus used for representing the decimal digits using five bits. Each bit is assigned a weight, such that the set bits sum to th ...

. However, in POSTNET, the two bars are full bars; in PLANET, the two-of-five are the short bars. As with POSTNET, the check digit is calculated by summing the other characters and calculating the single digit which, when added to the sum, makes the total divisible by 10.

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20060505214851/https://mailtracking.usps.com/mtr/resources/documents/Guide.pdf * http://www.usps.com/strategicplanning/cs05/chp2_021.html * http://www.bccsoftware.com/currentevents/articles/articles/bcc_wwm_article.asp Barcodes United States Postal Service {{Postal-stub