This European Standard defines a set of glyph images designated OCR-B, intended primarily for use in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) applications, but suitable also for visual, i.e. human, reading. It does not relate any coding scheme with these images (see clause 5).
This European Standard is based on the ISO standard 1073 part II. It differs from that standard in extending normatively the set of glyph images with the Euro currency sign; but also in deleting some glyphs not relevant in present-day OCR processing. It further adds information on a number of glyph images corresponding to characters specific to some European-origin languages.
NOTE In ISO 1073 Part II the term "character" is used not only in its strict sense, but also to mean the printed images used for their visual, i.e. printed, representations. In this European Standard the term "glyph image" is used in the latter sense.
This European Standard contains information on nominal dimensions for the glyph images. Tolerances, printing quality and other characteristics of the formats needed to satisfy interchange requirements are covered in other standards (see clause 3).
The glyph image set contains 117 glyph images comprising digits, capital and small letters, diacritical marks, and symbols. It also contains a definition for SPACE.
The diacritical marks are designed for combination with small letters to produce composite glyph images complementing the basic image repertoire.