Check printing

[Charles M. Gajan]

On Wed, 2006-01-11 at 18:49 -0800, Simon Roberts wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I'm a new user of gnucash, migrating from a tool on "another platform"
> (yuk :) I hope this isn't unreasonably simple, but I did try to search
> the archives and couldn't find anything useful. It seems to have been
> discussed before, but the "official" archive search found nothing, I
> could only find some stuff with google--which implies I'm misusing the
> archive search somehow :(.
> 
> I want to print my own checks (cheques). Unfortunately, when I try
> this, the basic configuration of gnucash appears to be ready to "fill
> in" a check, rather than actually print the whole thing. I need to
> print the whole check, all the information: account number, bank
> address and details, route code, check number, the various lines, the
> text "Pay to the order of" and so forth. Basicly I buy totally blank
> check forms, and magnetic ink, and the rest is my own problem.
> 
> Can I do this, and if it's not supported in the software, can I expect
> to make it happen somehow? (I'm a programmer, but I really don't have
> all that much time to invest in this, sadly).
> 
> Cheers,
> Simon

I needed to replace VersaCheck for the lines, route number, account
number etc. What I did was create a template in openoffice.org draw
(a little measuring and a little trial and error) and got the MICR font
from GnuMICR at http://www.sandeen.net/GnuMICR/ and loaded it into
openoffice.org. I even grabbed the bank logo from their website and used
the GIMP to make the background transparent. Pretty simple, but this
works ok for me. I can't get magnetic toner for my old ink jet printer,
but the bank has honored all the checks. You might also check out
freecheck at http://www.sandeen.net/freecheck/. It is a perl script I
believe.

chas