MICR Toner Cartridges For Check Printing

MICR Toner or Magnetic Ink Character Recognition Toner is a special toner used to print the bottom line on a bank check. The toner includes a special iron oxide that makes the toner magnetic.

The banking industry uses MICR technology to quickly, securely, and accurately process checks. When the line at the bottom of the check is printed with MICR toner, the check can be read with special check readers.

Many business and personal software programs now make it possible to print your own checks, however, if you want to comply with banking standards, you must use MICR toner.

Anyone who wants to print their own checks needs to use MICR Toner to meet certain banking specifications. Banks, businesses and individuals can print their own checks using a simple laser printer and MICR toner.

• Check Printing Software
• A Special MICR Font
• Special Check Paper
• HP or Lexmark Laser Printer
• MICR Toner

There are many different software titles out there that will allow you to print your own checks. My recommendation is VersaCheck. The VersaCheck line of software will work as stand alone, or along with Quicken, Quickbooks, Money and other accounting programs.

We also like the MICR E13B Font Advantage Package from the guys at idautomation.com. It comes with easy to use Bank Check Design and Printing software and Security fonts for printing secure names and amounts.

Have a favorite check printing software? Please let us know in the comments section below.

You should use blank check stock to print your own checks. Many of these blank check stocks have security and anti-fraud features built into the checks such as watermarks, fluorescent fibers, micro printing and pantographs.All of these features are to used together to prevent check fraud.

We buy our blank check papers here.

There are special MICR printers you can buy. However, You really don't need something that specialized. You can use almost any HP laser printer. But before you go out and just plop down a few hundred dollars, MAKE SURE that you can find MICR toner for that particular printer. You'll be fine with most of the older Hewlett Packard printers. Those big named printer manufacturers pump new printers out like there is no tomorrow. it takes a lot of research and development to design and manufacture a MICR toner cartridge for each new printer. My advice to you is to make sure that MICR toner is available BEFORE you buy the printer.

It is probably best to have a dedicated laser printer for printing checks.MICR toner is expensive. You most likely won't want to print your regular documents and use up your expensive MICR Toner. You can pick up a used HP Laserjet 1020 on Ebay for less than $100. The HP Laserjet 1020 uses a Q2612A HP MICR Toner cartridge.

MICR is a precise technology. Banks rely on the ability to accurately read the line printed at the bottom of a check. In my opinion, there are too many variables when it comes to ink. My short answer is no. You should use a laser printer and micr toner to print your own checks.