3-4 Electronic File Format

3-4.1 The Two Records

Mail owners or designees can be certified for transmission of electronic files only if the Postal Service has already certified their privately printed barcoded labels (see chapter 2).

The electronic file record formats are a set of character positions or fields. Mandatory fields must be populated, and optional fields may be filled with spaces (see 3-4.2 and 3-4.3). Edit checks are not performed on optional fields; therefore, no warning or error messages will be issued for them.

The electronic file consists of two records:

1. Header Record (H1)
2. Detail Record 1 (D1)

Electronic files must contain one Header Record followed by a Detail Record 1 for each mailpiece in the mailing. Any number of Detail Record 1 records may follow a single Header Record in a file.

Example:

H1750123456789600000011 . . .

D1PM71123456789000050015 . . .

D1PM71123456789000058424 . . .

D1FC71123456789000055249 . . .

D1FC71123456789000057502 . . .