A method for positioning an indicium for printing on substrate. The indicium can be an IBIP type indicium and the substrate can be the surface of an envelope. The substrate has printable and complementary unprintable areas and a reserved clear area where printing is possible but unacceptable. The unprintable area is determined as function of printer characteristics and substrate dimensions. If the indicium overlaps the reserved clear area the indicium is modified by shifting portions of the indicium with respect to each other so that none overlaps the reserved clear area.