Effective September 7, 2010, the Postal Service™ will clarify the Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM®) 202.2.1 and 302.2.1 to add a reference to current standards that require the delivery address to be completely visible within a window envelope, when used.
This revision is not a change, but we are publishing the clarification as a reminder of an existing addressing standard that mailers who design letter-size and flat-size mail may not have been aware of due to its DMM location in the generic mailability section.
Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM)
* * * * *
200 Commercial Letters and Cards
* * * * *
202 Elements on the Face of a Mailpiece
* * * * *
2.0 Address Placement
2.1 Address Placement Causing Mail to be Nonmailable and Nonmachinable
[Revise 2.1 by adding a new fourth sentence to read as follows:]
***The location of the delivery address on a letter-size mailpiece determines which dimensions are the length and height of the piece. The length is the dimension parallel to the address as read; the height is the dimension perpendicular to the length. Consequently, the placement of the address may render a piece nonmailable or nonmachinable. See 601.6.3 for addressing standards when a window envelope is used. On a letter-size piece, the recommended address placement is within the optical character reader (OCR) read area, which is a space on the address side of the mailpiece defined by these boundaries (see Exhibit 2.1, OCR Read Area):
* * * * *
300 Commercial Flats
* * * * *
302 Elements on the Face of a Mailpiece
* * * * *
2.0 Address Placement
2.1 Basic Standards
[Revise 2.1 by adding a new last sentence as follows:]
***See 601.6.3 for addressing standards when a window envelope is used.
* * * * *
We will incorporate these revisions into the next printed version of the DMM and into the monthly update of the online DMM available via Postal Explorer® at http://pe.usps.com.
— Mailing Standards,
Pricing, 8-12-10
