How to print checks at home

You can print a check on your own account from a normal printer. The useful part is lining the sheet up, and checking with the bank before you rely on it.

Start from a check you already have

The nine digits at the bottom left are the routing number. The account number sits beside them. Type those into the check maker only if the account is yours, or you are allowed to write on it. Leave the SAMPLE mark on while you practice. It comes off after that confirmation, and not before.

Paper

A test can go on ordinary letter paper. For checks you will actually hand to someone, blank check stock is the usual buy. Security paper reacts to chemicals and often has a watermark. Those features live in the paper, not in a picture we can draw. Personal checks on this site are 6 by 2.75 inches. Business checks are 8.5 by 3.5 inches, which is the size sold three to a letter sheet.

Simmons Bank's quality sheet, which cites ANSI, lists check height from 2.75 to 3.66 inches and length from 6 to 8.75 inches. It also asks business customers for 28 pound MICR bond. That is one bank's standard, not a rule that every bank prints on the door.

Toner

Some banks still want magnetic toner so a sorter can read the bottom line. Others accept a clear laser or inkjet print because they capture an image. Print one small test and ask the bank that holds the account which of those it is. PaidPilot cannot know that from here.

Alignment

Browsers like to shrink a page so it fits. That quietly moves every character. In the print box, pick Actual size or 100 percent. Then print the alignment sheet from the check maker. The black bar on that sheet is one inch. If it is short or long, the dialog is still scaling. If the crop marks sit high, use the nudge, which steps by 1/32 inch. Nudge is a shift, not a resize of the magnetic line.

The back is a separate problem. Flipping a sheet and hitting it twice rarely lands in the same place. Download the backs by themselves, flip on the long edge, and give the back its own nudge. The endorsement box is the top 1.5 inches, with the words "Endorse here" and "Do not write, stamp, or sign below this line."

After it prints

Sign it with a pen. Keep a check register so the next number and the balance stay honest. If the test deposit is refused, do not keep printing the same file and hoping. Call the bank, then change paper or toner before you try again.

Nothing on this page is legal advice. The tool does not store the account number. A longer note on the bottom line is in the MICR explanation, and empty layouts are in the template gallery.