Which ID Card Printer Ribbon To Use

Not all card printer ribbons are created equally. Depending on what you're printing on your cards, there are ribbons designed to be more cost effective than others. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been talking with a customer about their ID supplies and come to find out they are not using the most efficient ribbon for how they are printing. This happens most often when customers have a dual-sided capable printer and want to print color on the front of the card and only black on the back side of the card. All of the card printer manufacturers have created a special ribbon for this application since it is so common. YMCKOK ribbons are the perfect solution to this situation. Yes, there are lots of letters there but it’s really not as confusing as it may seem. Let’s break it down! Each letter stands for a specific color:

Y = Yellow
M = Magenta
C = Cyan
K = Black
O = Overlay
K = Black

With a dual-sided printer, the YMCKO panels are printed on the front of the card, then the card is flipped over by the printer and the second K panel is printed on the back side of the card. All too often I find customers using a YMCKO ribbon to print color on the front and only black on the back side. With this scenario, you’d be using all 5 panels, YMCK and O, to print the front, and another 5 panels to print the back. This means you’ll use the ribbon twice as fast and you’ll be wasting the first K panel and the second set of YMC panels. The image below shows the panels used when printing YMCO on one side of a card and K on the back side of a card.

If you’re unsure about the best ribbon to use for how you’re printing, one of our ID Professionals would be happy to help! Call us at (800)321-4405 x2.