SEC. 11. PHYSICAL ASPECTS AND

REQUIREMENTS: PRINTING

.01 Printing Medium. The private printing of all substitute tax forms must be by conventional printing processes, photocopying, computer-graphics, or similar reproduction processes.

.02 Legibility. 1 All forms must have a high standard of legibility, both as to printing and reproduction and as to fill-in matter. Entries of taxpayer data may be no smaller than eight points.

2 The Service reserves the right to reject those with poor legibility. The ink and printing method used must ensure that no part of a form (including text, graphics, data entries, etc.) develops ‘‘smears’’ or similar quality deterioration, including any subsequent copies or reproductions made from an approved master substitute form, either during preparation or during Service processing.

.03 Type Font. Many federal tax forms are printed using ‘‘Helvetica’’ as the basic type font. We request that you use this type font when composing substitute forms.

.04 Print Spacing. Substitute forms should be printed using a 6 lines/inch vertical print option. They should also be printed horizontally in 10 pitch pica (i.e., 10 print characters per inch) or 12 pitch elite (i.e., 12 print positions per inch).

.05 Image Size. The image size of printed substitute forms should be as close as possible to that of the official form. You may omit any text on both computer-prepared and computergenerated forms that is solely instructional.

.06 Title Area Changes. To allow a large top margin for marginal printing and more lines per page (see Sec. 13 below), the title line(s) for all substitute forms (not including the form’s year designation and sequence number, when present), may be photographically reduced by 40 percent or reset as one line of type. When reset as one line, the type size may be no smaller than 14-point. You may omit ‘‘Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service’’ and all reference to instructions in the form’s title area.

.07 Remove Government Printing Office Symbol. When privately printing substitute tax forms, the Government Printing Office symbol and/or jacket number must be removed. In the same place, using the same type size, print the Employer Identification Number (EIN), the Social Security Number (SSN) of the printer or designer, or the IRS assigned source code. (We prefer this last number be printed in the lower left area of the first page of each form.) Also remove the IRS Catalog Number, if one is present in the bottom center margin, and the Recycle Symbol, if the substitute is not produced on recycled paper.

.08 Printing On One Side of Paper. While it is preferred that both sides of the paper be used for substitute and reproduced forms, resulting in the same page arrangement as that of the official form or schedule, the Service will not object if only one side of the paper is used.

.09 Photocopy Equipment. The Service does not undertake to approve or disapprove the specific equipment or process used in reproducing official forms. Photocopies of forms must be entirely legible and satisfy the conditions stated in this and other revenue procedures.

.10 Reproductions. Reproductions of official forms and substitute forms which do not meet the requirements of

this revenue procedure may not be filed instead of the official forms. Illegible photocopies are subject to being returned to the filer for resubmission of legible copies.

.11 Removal of Instructions. You may remove all references to instructions. No prior approval is needed. One exception is that the statement, ‘‘For Paperwork Reduction Act Notice, See Instructions’’, must be retained or a similar statement provided on each form.