What you see happening at the post office is because their barcode reader is programmed that way. If your reader doesn't put the '-' into the output, that's presumably because it isn't in the barcode. If you were to add it to your barcodes (even assuming you can do the required encoding), your barcode then wouldn't comply with the post office requirements. If, as you say, your barcode reader can't be programmed as you want, you'll need to get one that can.

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Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]