System for preparing and franking a mail piece

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The above object is achieved and the disadvantages of the prior art are overcome in accordance with the subject invention by means of a system and apparatus for producing a mail piece, wherein the apparatus includes a first printer for printing a document and a mail finishing unit for receiving the document from the first printer and combining the document with an envelope to form a mail piece.
The mail finishing unit includes a mechanism for franking the mail piece.
The apparatus also includes a controller which is responsive to mail piece data; the mail piece data including first data for defining the document and second data for defining the address to be printed on the document and postal data defining a class of postal service and any special services for the mail piece and, optionally, a weight for the mail piece.
The controller controls the first printer to print documents in accordance with the document data, and accesses a data base of postage rates to determine a postage amount for the mail piece and controls the franking mechanism to frank the mail piece with that amount.
Preferably, the controller also includes a capability to access a second data base of per item weights to calculate a weight for the mail piece if the weight is not included in the mail piece data.
The system of the subject invention also includes data processing apparatus for: generating document data descriptive of a document in the mail piece; appending attribute data to the document data to form mail piece data descriptive of the mail piece; and, transmitting a digital signal representative of the mail piece data to the apparatus.
In accordance with one aspect of the subject invention the document data includes graphic data representative of an image of the document.
In accordance with another aspect of the subject invention the apparatus includes a second printer which both prints an address on the mail piece envelope and prints a franking indicia on the envelope.
In accordance with another aspect of the subject invention the apparatus communicates with a class 2 postage meter which returns at least a variable portion of the indicia to be printed by the second printer