System and method for detecting address fields on mail items

A method for locating and reading an address field on mail items, comprising the steps of:

• locating and reading said address field;
• determining if said locating and reading successfully located and read said address field;
• if said locating and reading unsuccessfully locates and reads said address field, performing the following steps:
• scanning a surface a mail item, said surface comprising said address field;
• forming a signature of said surface, said signature comprising position and outlines of a select number of typographic fields of said surface;
• searching a database for a match between said signature and another signature;
• where a match is found, importing field address information from said database associated with said another signature and repeating said step of locating and reading in said imported field address;
• and
• where a match is not found, forwarding scanned surface to an encoding device, manually encoding said surface, storing said signature and address field information in said database and repeating said step of locating and reading in a field address indicated in said encoding.