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Access Control Cards
Plastic cards used to gain access to premises, usually associated with magnetic stripe and proximity cards.

Bar Code
An array of machine-readable rectangular bars and spaces arranged in a specific way defined in international standards to represent letters, numbers, and other human-readable symbols.

Digital Imaging
Scanning or otherwise capturing images which may be subsequently edited, filed, displayed or printed on a plastic card.

Dye Sublimation
An imaging method for transferring controlled quantities of printer ribbon dye onto a plastic card. Because of the print head resolution (300 dpi), photographic quality results.

• Magnetic stripe cards have been in existence since the early 70’s when they were used on paper and film-based ID cards as well as credit cards. Magnetic stripe technology is widely used throughout the world and remains the dominant technology in the United States for transaction processing and access control.

• Other technologies such as PDF bar codes and smart chip cards are now capturing part of the magnetic stripe market since they can hold more information.

• Printing ID cards with your own card printer is a simple task. It just simply connects your printer to your computer and it will print out the same way like your paper printing machine. Plastic card printer prints your image on plastic instead of printing it on a piece of paper.

• Most card printers can handle plastic cards, equivalent to credit cards or driving licenses. These are standard CR-80 cards, measuring about 3.375 x 2.125 inches (85.5mm x 54 mm).