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Produce vibrantly colored, photographic quality ID cards using a reverse transfer (“retransfer”) card printer. Retransfer printers are superior to direct-to-card printers because they can print onto cards with uneven surfaces, such as pre-punched cards and smart cards. They also allow you to print over the card’s edge for total surface coverage, whereas direct-to-card printers leave a white border. Choose from single-sided and dual-sided models, many of which include encoding and lamination options.
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Many experienced card printer users are familiar with the white border that direct-to-card printers leave around the edge of cards. Retransfer ID card printers, on the other hand, produce "over-the-edge" prints that cover the entire surface of your cards.
Direct-to-card printers print directly to the surface of cards. Any uneven surface of a card--including coming in contact with the edge of a card--can cause expensive printhead damage.
Retransfer printers, on the other hand, print your card image to a clear film (retransfer film) that is then fused onto the surface of the card. With this, the printhead does not come in direct contact with your card, giving you the option to print over the edge of your cards and to a wider variety of card types including proximity cards, smart cards, pre-punched cards and key tag cards. Another benefit: retransfer printers produce rich, vibrant, saturated colors. Choose a retransfer card printer if your card design needs to print "over-the-edge" or if you will be printing on technology cards (smart cards, prox cards, etc.).
Simply put, a single-sided printer prints on one side of your cards and a dual-sided printer prints on both sides of your cards in one process.
If you recall the old days of cutting and pasting an ID card together, lamination may confuse you a bit. You might wonder why you would need lamination when printing directly to plastic. In plastic card printing, lamination is a clear protective layer that is applied over the top of your printed cards by a printer with lamination capability. It offers three primary benefits to a plastic ID card:
Choose a laminating retransfer card printer if your cards will be swiped in a mag stripe reader or will be worn in harsher environments, such as in the sun. Lamination will protect your cards from fading and extend their life--so you'll need to reprint cards less frequently, saving you time and supplies costs!
Rewritable single-sided IDP card printers are a cost-effective and environmentally-friendly card printing solution when the data printed on cards needs to be updated frequently, such as visitor ID cards.
Rewrite printing doesn't require a ribbon, but does require the use of special rewritable cards. In rewrite printing, heat is used to ‘print' information onto the heat-sensitive material contained in rewritable cards. This technology allows you to erase and reprint cards hundreds of times! Rewritable cards may be printed with a permanent full-color image on one part of the card, and the rewritable portion on the other. The rewritable portion of cards is generally offered with blue or black one-color printing.
Choose a single-sided ID card printer with rewrite capability if the data on your cards will be shared by many people or the data printed on them needs to be updated frequently.
While a barcode's information is kept in a computer, a magnetic stripe's information is stored within the magnetic stripe of the card. When used for access control, each card holds data that will unlock preprogrammed doors. Simply swipe the card and, if you are a validated user of that door, it will unlock.
There are two types of magnetic stripe cards:
High Coercivity (HiCo) magnetic stripe cards are harder to erase, and are used in applications where cards are frequently used or need to have a long life. High co stripes are resistant to damage from most magnets or magnetic fields and therefore are most often used for access control, time and attendance, and gift cards.
Low Coercivity (LoCo) magnetic stripe cards require a lower amount of energy to record and are easier to erase. Low co stripes can be damaged by even a brief contact with a magnetic field. With this, LoCo cards are typically used for applications where the card is only used for a short time, such as hotel room keys.
Requirements: In order to use magnetic stripe cards, you will need a retransfer ID card printer with magnetic stripe encoding capabilities and mid-level or fully-featured ID software.
Similar to a magnetic stripe card, data is stored within the smart card components. It can be reconfigured to add, erase, or edit hosted data. A smart card offers added functionality and can hold up to 100 times more data than a magnetic stripe. Smart cards can be categorized two ways:
A contact smart card has an integrated chip. As the name implies, a contact smart card must come into direct contact with the reader in order to be read.
A contactless smart card has a chip and an antenna. In order to be read, it needs to come within a specified distance to the reader (varies by reader), but doesn't need to make direct contact.
Note: Proximity cards are similar to contactless smart cards, but there are important differences. Proximity cards come pre-programmed, so do not need to be encoded. Some printers can read/verify data that has been written to a proximity card, but data on most* proximity cards cannot be added, erased, or edited.
Requirements: In order to use a contact or contactless smart card, you'll need a smart card encoding printer and fully-featured ID software. When ordering the printer, you'll need to specify whether you require contact or contactless encoding.
*Some cards, such as iClass cards, include non-editable, pre-programmed proximity data and a smart chip for encoding your own data.