Word 2010 - Where's the "Delivery Point Bar Code"?

Question

I've been trying to do a few mail merges in Word 2010, and after days of Googling, I can't find the answer:

What happened to the checkbox in Word 2010 that allows a POSTNET barcode to be placed on the mailing address of an envelope?

Any help is greatly appreciated,
Kyle

Answer 1

Hi Kyle

The best place to get help on mail merge would be the forum on the Answers site. Unfortunately, I don't yet have moderator priveleges here, so I can't move the message for you:

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/wordshare/threads

FWIW I believe I saw somewhere during beta that this was removed in Word 2010 because the barcodes Word generated with the feature were out-of-date. But you'll want to get that confirmed by people who specialize in mail merge :-)

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Cindy Meister, VSTO/Word MVP

Answer 2

In fact, the bar code was removed in Word 2007. The reference about the

format (POSTNET) being obsolete is http://support.microsoft.com/kb/897290.

 

If you insist on including bar codes anyway, Word still supports the BARCODE

field. But you (or your code) would have to insert the field as a separate

step after the merge.

 

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Regards,

Jay Freedman

Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so

all may benefit.

 

Cindy Meister wrote:

> Hi Kyle

>

> The best place to get help on mail merge would be the forum on the

> Answers site. Unfortunately, I don't yet have moderator priveleges

> here, so I can't move the message for you:

>

> http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/wordshare/threads

>

> FWIW I believe I saw somewhere during beta that this was removed in

> Word 2010 because the barcodes Word generated with the feature were

> out-of-date. But you'll want to get that confirmed by people who

> specialize in mail merge :-)

>

>

> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Cindy Meister, VSTO/Word MVP

 

 

 

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Jay Freedman MS Word MVP

Answer 3

Bless both of you.

I was looking for the correct forum, but didn't know about http://social.answers.microsoft.com.

Jay, that's quite unfortunate, but thank you for the definitive answer.

Kyle

Answer 4

Why did Microsoft remove that "destination point barcode" feature from the printing envelopes menu? Seems such a small thing, but it was neat to have.

JulianG

Answer 5

Because the barcodes that were generated by Word did not qualify for discounts from the USPS.

The USPS now has an Intelligent Mail Barcode system.  See http://www.usps.com/mailpro/2008/mayjune/page10.htm and http://ribbs.usps.gov/

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Hope this helps.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP,
dkr[atsymbol]mvps[dot]org
Posted via the Community Bridge

"jnodrog" wrote in message news:[e-mail]...

Why did Microsoft remove that "destination point barcode" feature from the printing envelopes menu? Seems such a small thing, but it was neat to have.

JulianG

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Doug Robbins - Word MVP dkr[atsymbol]mvps[dot]org

Answer 6

The delivery point barcode in Word was the main reason I use Word since I do thousands of mail merge letters. Dumping that feature instead of upgrading the software to accomodate the Post Office requirements was a huge mistake. It's the last Office update I'll ever purchase since I now have to outsource all my printing.

Answer 7

Microsoft could not easily replace the old delivery point barcode (which was a simple encoding of the delivery address ZIP+4 into PostNet bars) with the new Intelligent Mail Barcode. One reason is that, to be able to use the new code, you have to get a Mailer ID number from the USPS and include it in the barcode (see https://ribbs.usps.gov/index.cfm?page=intellmailmailidapp).

The USPS offers its own encoder (https://ribbs.usps.gov/index.cfm?page=encoder).

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Jay Freedman
MS Word MVP  FAQ: http://word.mvps.org

Answer 8

Why cannot Word provide a usable bar code?  It is NOT rocket science!

Answer 9

Regardless of discounts, doesn't adding a barcode expedite processing and travel, since USPS spits a barcode onto all pieces of mail that don't have one?