System for metering and auditing the dots or drops or pulses produced by a digital printer in printing an arbitrary graphic

A method for printing postage using a postage meter, the improvement comprising:

• hiding information in a customer supplied graphic so that the amount of postage debited by the meter is hidden in the graphic, wherein the graphic contains a plurality of pixels and a portion of the pixels form a code that indicates the time that the postage has been set in the meter, wherein the pixels that comprise the code are arranged in columns and rows, and the time that the postage has been set in the meter is encoded by the pixels in the columns, wherein
• a portion of one of the columns is encoded by the pixels to indicate number of tens of seconds;
• and
• a portion of one of the columns is encoded by the pixels to indicate number of seconds.

A method for printing postage using a postage meter, the improvement comprising:

• hiding information in a customer supplied graphic so that the amount of postage debited by the meter is hidden in the graphic, wherein the pixels that comprise the code are arranged in columns and rows, and the amount of postage paid is encoded by the pixels in one or more of the rows, wherein a portion of one of the rows is coded by the pixels to indicate tens of dollars of postage paid;
• a portion of one of the rows is coded by the pixels to indicate dollars of postage paid;
• a portion of one of the rows is coded by the pixels to indicate tens of cents of postage paid;
• a portion of one of the rows is coded by the pixels to indicate number of cents of postage paid;
• and
• a portion of one of the rows is coded by the pixels to indicate tenths of cents of postage paid.