A method and system for selecting a characterizing algorithm to be used to characterize blocks of printed material. A digital image of printed material, such as an address block, on an object is obtained, and the image is processed to extract characterizing information descriptive of aspects of the printed material. An indicium representative of the information is then printed on the object. The object's relationship to the indicium can be verified by regenerating the characterizing information from the printed material and comparing the regenerated characterizing information with characterizing information recovered from the indicium. A particular algorithm is selected from a predetermined group of characterizing algorithms by determining an estimate for the robustness of each algorithm.