The US Postal Service doesn't recommend type any lower than 2.75 inches from the bottom ofthe envelope because that's the OCR Read area. When I was working for a printing company several years ago, one of our customers insisted that--for aesthetic reasons-- she wanted her return address within that zone. When most of the letters (primarily invoices) she sent ended up being delivered right back to her, she relented.

Placing type across the bottom of the letter is like shooting yourself in the foot: the USPS reserves an area approximately 5" wide and .625" tall from the bottom left-hand edge of the envelope for barcoding. Anything that intrudes into that area is likely to be covered by a white sticker.

P.S. Evidently, you slogged right by this...

http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/102.htm

Thanks for the quick response.

A couple of follow up questions if you will.

a. lower than "2.75 inches from the bottom..." Do you mean not below 2.75" from the top of the envelope? Specifically the window of 5" wide by .625" tall from the bottom corner? I want to make sure i'm not misreading you.

b. i checked the dmm.102 and a number of the sections that they point to from withing that section to elsewhere in the document. particularly with regard to 102, i don't see anything about Return Address, but instead the window for addressing the Deliver To section. If it's on that page, i'd like to know where it is that i'm screen blind.

c. Do you know of any issues regarding running the Return info on the verso on the envelope flap?

Thanks for taking a moment to talk me down off the ledge. :)

There should be not text close to the bottom of any envelope or postcard. The distance odlnick stated sounds right from my weak recollection of mailing guidelines. You can look around usps.gov to find details.

I used to have a client who printed massive amounts of direct mail marketing -- literally millions of letters each month -- and they dealt with the post office constantly on issues like this. They found that many post office regs which sounded like ironclad rules were actually just preferences, and you can often get away with designs that are supposedly not allowed.

BUT... there's always the chance that it'll get returned, so it's safer to stick with the official guidelines.

@etl

lower than "2.75 inches from the bottom..." Do you mean not below 2.75" from the top of the envelope?

No, I mean from the BOTTOM of the envelope; e.g.

If the return address falls within the OCR Read (red) area, chances are very good that your customer will end up sending themselves mail, as in the example I noted.

Specifically the window of 5" wide by .625" tall from the bottom corner?

Specifically, from the BOTTOM RIGHT-HAND SIDE (the orange area). This area is reserved for USPS barcoding and, if you do not cede this territory to them, they WILL claim it by pasting a white sticker on the envelope and printing their barcode there; therefore, unless the return address is very short, don't put it there...period.

FURTHERMORE, if the envelope is used for a mass mailing AND carries an endorsement--i.e, Address Service Requested, Change Service Requested, Forwarding Service Requested--the return address MUST be printed in the upper left-hand corner. (§4.2)

Just remember what the main function of the envelop is, to get the item inside delivered to the proper address in a timely manner. If that does not happen, it does not matter how cool your envelope looks if the only person who sees it is the postal clerk who dumps it into the Undeliverable bin

@James M

I used to have a client who printed massive amounts of direct mail marketing -- literally millions of letters each month -- and they dealt with the post office constantly on issues like this. They found that many post office regs which sounded like ironclad rules were actually just preferences, and you can often get away with designs that are supposedly not allowed.

No: the regulations are rules, not preferences. However, depending on the customer (massive amounts of direct mail marketing carries some weight) and the variance (would not affect operations downstream), the bulk mail supervisor or the postmaster at the receiving post office CAN, at his or her discretion, waive certain regulations. For instance, if a mailing piece does not conform to allowed proportions but the variance is small, the piece may be accepted. On the other hand, if barcode geometry and/or placement do not conform (hence affecting its mailability down the line), either the piece will be rejected or the mailer will lose the automation discount which, although a matter of only a few cents per piece, can add up to some serious money if the mailing is large.

If you have questions about what's permitted and what's not, every bulk mail acceptant center has a Mailpiece Design Analyst who can review your proposal and tell you whether or not it will fly.

Oldnick, THANK YOU! for the follow up. That cleared everything up very nicely. and explicitly.

Thanks to everyone else for their feedback too.

> regulations are rules, not preferences...
> [but] the bulk mail supervisor or the postmaster at the
> receiving post office CAN, at his or her discretion,
> waive certain regulations

Yes, that jogged my memory of what my client said and you're right.

My word, Harriet Russell wouldn't get away with this in the States, would she? :-)

I'm totally with Chris on this one.

Putting the return address on the bottom is like putting a handle inside a coffee cup. What price "cute"?

Even if no mail was ever returned to the sender, why would anyone ever risk covering up the name of the sender?

The whole idea of addressing an envelope is to make it easy for the Post Office to deliver the piece, and in case the addressee's address is incorrect, or the addressee moved or died, to return it to the sender. Putting the address on the bottom is killing two birds with one stone: impeding the Post Office in doing it's job, and potentially obscuring the name of the sender, robbing the sender of visibility, and if the return address is really covered over, possibly having the piece treated as junk mail.

While you're at it, use the full 9 digit zip+4 code.

Re The Eye Chart Envelope: the Post Office charges more if the address is not parallel to the longest dimension of the envelope.

I had a costly experience and had to reprint a big job because our post office was using a scanner for the addressee and the post office rejected the whole first class mailing.
I actually repeated a previous job that went through anyway.

Years ago, when I worked at making things out of steel, I worked for a company that was designing and building the first generation of high speed sorting conveyors for Canada Post... It was fascinating to watch when they were testing the equipment, and loads of fun to see how how many parcels it could mangle in a very short space of time when thing went really wrong and how much mail it could put in the wrong bins in a couple of seconds when it failed to read addresses.

I,ve always written addresses exactly where the post office tells me to.

It used to be common to see stationery designed with elements that went all the way down the left side of the envelope. I think I designed a few like that myself. Guess those days are gone, thanks to fast, but not-so-clever, robots.