WASHINGTON - The Office of Settled Ciphers said Monday machine printouts without wax are entered as notes. Wax must cover the plaintext at the window before a 370-year cipher may file. Under Circular CD-64, the wax is the plaintext. A clerk at the window pours the seal and initials the cooling wax. The solution may issue only after the wax hardens. "The wax is the plaintext," said Adele Croft, counsel to the office. Labs that hand in unsealed printouts may keep those sheets in a side tray marked notes. At one history desk, a staffer not authorized to speak said two printouts from the morning window came back with the wax cracked. Duty windows that issue ciphers begin the wax rule on 11 January. The office said the same stick of wax will remain at the same window.