How can I include the postal barcode on envelopes I print?

I too used to print the POSTNET barcodes as a way of making sure that my postal mail was machine sorted.  And I have read through the discussion and yes it is possible to still print the old POSTNET barcodes using Word 2016 if you install the USPS download mentioned. (I've done it for fun)

I think it is unlikely that using the old codes is a problem for USPS since during the switchover from POSTNET to the new codes there would have been millions of pieces of junk mail in the system and hand addressing it would have been out of the question.  It would have been easy to write the scanning software to read both codes and just ignore the obsolete code.   The few times I've ever gotten a letter that had a stickered barcode on it there had never been a barcode on the letter in the first place.

But clearly the old barcode is useless and does nothing if added.  However - there is STILL something that you can do to make sure that your mail is machine-scanned and not hand-scanned, and that is to put the proper address formatting on the envelope.  That is detailed here:

http://about.usps.com/publications/pub177/welcome.htm

The critical things are to use 10 or 12 point font that is OCR-readable.  USPS uses Ariel font on their website but this is NOT a good OCR font because the l and I are the same (lowercase L and uppercase I)   The Tahoma font has been discovered to be very friendly to OCR as detailed here:

https://www.capturebites.com/2016/03/15/ocr-font/

It also would not hurt to bold it depending on how good the contrast is - bold black on white envelope is the best of course.  And of course, use all upper case.

The other critical thing is to put the city, state and zip on the same line and use the proper zip +4.   Get this from the USPS zip lookup page here:

https://tools.usps.com/go/ZipLookupAction!input.action

For example here is the RIGHT way to do it:

MICROSOFT

1 MICROSOFT WAY

REDMOND WA 98052-8300

And here is the WRONG way to do it:

Microsoft

One Microsoft Way

Redmond WA

98052

Both will arrive but the second one will likely require hand sorting.

And of course it goes without saying that if you hand-write the address, or use any color other than black, it's going to be hand-sorted.

Um, Jay, can you read subtext?  Clearly your jargon filled answers frustrated those of us who liked the simple box that we checked in previous editions of Word. Also, Doug Robbins' assumption that we used it merely for a postal discount also appeared to dismiss our appeals for assistance.  Note that "Found the Answer!!";s answer stopped the queries.  I'll admit that we frustrated you, but the feeling clearly was mutual.