How To Write A Perfect Mailing Address

Writing perfect mailing addresses on mailing labels is not so easy task as it

may seem. The US Postal Service has a whole set of guidelines about how to
properly compose and format addresses, and a perfect delivery address must
comply with these guidelines and standards.
A perfect mailing address must be properly spelled out, abbreviated us-
ing the USPS approved abbreviations, and formatted according to the USPS
requirements. Here are the main points about how to write a perfect mailing
address:

• Address block must contain 3 to 5 lines:

1. Attention line (recipient’s name),
2. Recipient line (recipient’s company name),
3. Secondary Address line (apartment, suite, building, etc.),
4. Delivery Address line (street, house number),
5. Last line (city, state and zip code).
The most common addresses require only 3 lines (Attention, Delivery
Address and Last line), while less common ones may require 4 or 5 lines.
• The words in address block lines must be spelled out fully or abbrevi-
ated using the USPS approved abbreviations, like ST for “street”, APT
for “apartment”, or 2-letter state codes.

Since today letters are rarely sorted manually, the lines of a perfect mailing
address must be suited for machine sorting using the OCR technology. The
below points deal with OCR compatibility issues:

• All lines must be aligned to the left, with all images and other non-
address elements placed above the address block.

• All words must be printed with uniform uppercase letters, leaving enough
white space between lines and characters.
• Any punctuation must be avoided, except for the dash (i.e. “-”) character.
• The lines must be printed using black sans-serif fonts like Arial or Tahoma.

• Font size must be no less than 8 points and no more than 18 points (10-12
points is the most appropriate font size).
• The address block must be placed inside OCR read area and must not be
skewed or slanted.

For further instructions about how to print a perfect mailing address you
are greatly encouraged to refer to the USPS official publications, especially
those No. 25, 28, 177 and 221.

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