Base Marks, Sequence Marks and Spy Marks Sets
Base Marks
- Base Marks are primarily intended to be machine readable.
- The PDF Scan utility uses these marks to identify individual mailpieces within the file and to display the letters IDs of all combined letters within the mailpiece.
- You can also search for these marks within a PDF reader and use the Find-Next button to skip down to the first page of each mailpiece.
Base Marks appear (by default) as tiny invisible text in the middle of the top edge of the first sheet of each mailpiece; although you can change the position and appearance (see below).
The text content of BaseMarks is:
MkzMailpiece ID-of-letter Sheet-Count + ID-of-1st-combined-letter + ID-of-2nd-combined-letter + ...
E.g. "MkzMailpiece 132445 4 + 132447"
To configure Base Marks, select any of the OMR sets from the drop-down list in the Output configuration.
If actual OMR marks are not required, then select the OMR set called Base. This should now be considered the default for all output configurations.
In addition you need to add a key to the mkzcomon.config file. This is so that you can ‘switch off’ Base marks if really necessary, and so that you can vary the position/size/colour etc. If you don’t add this key, then Base marks will not be generated.
<add key="OmrBaseMarks" value="X-pos,Y-pos,fontSize,colour,rotation" />
The default values are:
| X-position | 80 |
| Y-position | 1 |
| fontSize | 4 |
| Colour | white |
| Rotation | 0 |
If you want the default values you can just use
<add key="OmrBaseMarks" value="true" />
But if you want custom values, you must specify all the values. You can’t just specify some of them.
Sequence Marks
- Sequence Marks are primarily intended to be human readable
- They are useful if, for instance, a Printroom operator drops the printed stack of letters and needs to reassemble the stack into the correct order.
- Sequence marks can be used with or without Base marks.
Sequence Marks appear (by default) as readable text on the left edge of every sheet of every mailpiece; although you can change the appearance (see below)
The text content of Sequence Marks is:
SheetNumWithinFile SheetNumWithinThisMailpiece-NumberOfSheetsInThisMailpiece
E.g. "0025 002-007" means "Sheet 25 of file, sheet 2 of 7 in mailpiece".
Sequence marks are configured in exactly the same way as Base marks i.e. Select any of the OMR sets from the drop-down list in the Output configuration and add a key to the mkzcomon.config file, except that in this case the key is called OmrSeqMarks.
<add key="OmrSeqMarks" value="X-pos,Y-pos,fontSize,colour,rotation" />
The default values are:
| X-position | 6 |
| Y-position | 150 |
| fontSize | 10 |
| Colour | black |
| Rotation | 90 |
If you want the default values you can just use
<add key="OmrSeqMarks" value="true" />
But if you want custom values, you must specify all the values. You can’t just specify some of them.
Spy Marks
- Spy Marks are primarily intended to be human readable
- They are useful if, for instance, a specific mark has to be added to the first sheet (or every sheet) in the mailpiece to help print room operators.
- Spy marks can be used with or without Base marks.
Spy Marks do not appear by default. They must be configured if required.
Spy marks are configured in exactly the same way as Base marks i.e. Select any of the OMR sets from the drop-down list in the Output configuration and add a key to the mkzcomon.config file, except that in this case the key is called OmrSpyMarks.
<add key="OmrSpyMarks" value="X-pos,Y-pos,fontSize,colour,rotation,firstSheetText~otherSheetsText" />
Note the extra parameter which defines the text to be placed on each sheet. Text to the left of the tilde is displayed on the first sheet of the mailpiece, and text to the right of the tilde is displayed on subsequent sheets. If there is no tilde, the same text is displayed on all sheets.
This parameter can support the following substitution variables
| @NAME@ | The letter name |
| @ID@ | The ID of the Output Queue |
| @UID@ | The Unique ID of the letter |
| @STREAM@ | The letter stream |
| @SHEET@ | The sheet-count of the mailpiece |
The following shows example values that would place the sheet-count, contained within square brackets, in the top-right corner of the first sheet of each mailpiece, and a small circle on subsequent sheets:
<add key="OmrSpyMarks" value="202,6,10,red,0,[@SHEET@]~o" />
There are no default values for spy marks