The USPS has established guidelines for what it calls quality addressing. Quality addressing ensures standardized addresses that help the USPS provide timely mail delivery. This goal becomes even more critical when mailers attempt to qualify for postal discounts.
A standardized address is an address that has been matched against the CODE-1 Plus database and formatted based on USPS addressing conventions. CODE-1 Plus uses USPS conventions to ensure deliverability of your addresses. The USPS addressing conventions include guidelines for:
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Format
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Punctuation
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Address components
The first step to quality addressing is a healthy mailing list. CODE-1 Plus uses USPS address standardization guidelines set forth in USPS Publication 28 to correct your addresses and ensure your mail's deliverability.
For more information on address standardization, please see Postal Addressing Standards, USPS Publication 28 at http://pe.usps.gov/cpim/ftp/pubs/pub28/pub28.pdf. You can order this publication from:
NATIONAL CUSTOMER SUPPORT CENTERMEMPHIS TN 38188-0001(800) 238-3150
CODE-1 Plus considers the address to be only the street, and considers the city/state/ZIP Code to be additional information—separate from the address. For this reason, when we refer to an address in this book, we mean any or all of the following elements shown in the figure below:
Address Components
Address elements and city/state/ZIP information combine to make lines. For the purposes of this product, these lines are defined as shown in the figure below:
Address Lines
The USPS allows the following placements for suite/apartment numbers:
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On the primary address line (just above the city/state/ZIP line), following the street information
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On the secondary address line (just above the primary address line), by itself
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On the secondary address line, with the secondary address line information.
CODE-1 Plus recognizes both apartment/suite designators and apartment/suite numbers on both secondary and primary address lines, and formats those accordingly.
In standardizing or normalizing an address with a Private Mailbox (PMB), CODE-1 Plus puts the PMB designator and number on the secondary address line if a secondary address line is provided. If a secondary address line is not provided and CODE-1 Plus finds a PMB, then CODE-1 Plus attempts to append the PMB designator and number to the primary address line. If there is not enough room on the primary address line, CODE-1 Plus drops the PMB designator and number. For more information on using this option to verify PMB/MSC data, refer to Using Delivery Point Validation.
Since there is no PMB data on the postal database, CODE-1 Plus will not attempt to correct or verify PMB information. However, if you have the DPV option, it is possible to verify some PMB information by providing Commercial Mail Receiving Agency (CMRA) return codes. For more information on CMRAs, refer to "DPVOUT" in "Parameter Reference" in your CODE-1 Plus Reference Guide. The following figures provide a standardization example. For a detailed discussion and more examples for address standardization, refer to USPS Publication 28.
The original address is:
Example Address on Envelope
For automation compatibility, the USPS prefers the address to appear as:
USPS Preferred Address on Envelope