In 1968, American Type Founders produced OCR-A, one of the first optical character recognition typefaces to meet the criteria set by the U.S. Bureau of Standards.

The design is simple so that it can be read by a machine, but it is slightly more difficult for the human eye to read. OCR-A follows the 1981 standard set by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), X-3.17-1981 (size I). The same design is also specified for the German DIN 66008 standard. OCR-B was designed in 1968 by Adrian Frutiger for Monotype.

This design pushes the limits of the optical reader, but is easier for people to read. OCR-B’s construction follows the ISO 1073/II-1976 (E) standard, with 1979 corrections (letterpress design, size I). Both OCR-A and OCR-B have “alternate” versions, which have the standard ISO-Adobe character set instead of the more limited OCR character set.