Magnetic Ink?

[BobWeaver]

I'm setting up a layout for printing out cheques (that's Canadian for checks ).

It seems to me that at one time you had to use pre-numbered forms because the OCR text at the bottom (Bank ID, Acct. No. and cheque No.) was printed with magnetic ink so that the bank's scanner could pick up the info. Is that obsolete technology now?

For better control, we want to have Filemaker assign the cheque number, rather than force the user to enter a number into the database from the cheque form.

Just wondering what others have done in this regard.