Datacard Group ImageCard SelectTM and UltraGrafix SelectTM Printers manual Magnetic Stripe Setup

D-3

Magnetic Stripe settings used by the Select printer

The following table presents technical details that apply to encoding magnetic stripe data.

	IATA	ABA	TTS	NTT	Binary
Character Differential	32	48	48	0	0
Start Sentinel (SS)	% (37)	; (59)	; (59)	127	None
(ASCII character)
End Sentinel (ES)	? (63)	? (63)	? (63)	127	None
(ASCII character)
Lowest ASCII Character	space (32)	0 (48)	0 (48)	(1)	0
Highest ASCII Character	_ (95)	? (63)	? (63)	(126)	255
Character-level parity (VRC)	Odd	Odd	Odd	Even	None
Cumulative parity (LRC)	Even	Even	Even	Even	None
Density in bits per inch	210	75	210	210	210
Data bits per character	6	4	4	7	8
Maximum number of	76	37	104	69	33
encodable characters (not
including start and end
sentinel or LRC)
Encoding direction	SS first	SS first	SS first	SS last	SS first
Start sentinel adjustment	310	320	310	450	310

Magnetic Stripe Setup

Do the following to set up the printer and printer driver to encode magnetic stripes on cards:

•Use cards with magnetic stripes when making a printer test card.

•Determine the coercivity to use. Usually, the coercivity is system-wide decision: magnetic stripe readers are likely to require a specific coercivity value. Card stock is purchased to match that coercivity value. Set the coercivity in the printer driver.

•Select the encoding format. If a custom format, such as triple-IATA, is used, select Binary or “Use Printer coercivity” in the printer driver.

User’s Guide for ImageCard® Select™ and UltraGrafix® Select™ Printers