FARGO electronic Pro-L manual B. Iso Track Locations, C. Sending Track Information, 0.130

Pro-L Card Printer User’s Manual

B. ISO TRACK LOCATIONS

The magnetic encoding module encodes onto tracks in accordance with an ISO

7811-2 magnetic stripe. Refer to the following diagram for track locations:

0.223" 0.353" 0.493" 0.130"

TRACK1 0.110"

TRACK2 0.110"

TRACK3 0.110"

0.140"

NOTE: Although all standard Pro-L printers are capable of printing onto oversized cards, a special version of the printer is required if you also need to encode the magnetic stripe of oversized cards. Please contact your authorized reseller if you would like more information.

C. SENDING TRACK INFORMATION

Magnetic track data is sent in the form of text strings from the application software to the printer driver along with all of the other printable objects within your card design. In order for the printer driver to differentiate between magnetic track data and the rest of the printable objects, the magnetic track data strings must be uniquely “tagged.” In other words, specific characters must be added to the magnetic track data in order for the printer driver to know which data is to be encoded, which tracks to encode, when the track data stops and starts, and so forth. In some cases, these specific characters are automatically added to the string of track data by customized ID software applications. In most cases, however, the user must manually add these characters to the string of magnetic track data. If these characters are not added to the track data, the text intended for the magnetic track will most likely appear as printed text on the card. To avoid this, track information must be entered as follows.

When entering track data, the “~” character is entered first, followed by the track number (1, 2, or 3) on which you intend to encode the data. The data to be encoded should then follow. The first character of this data string must be the track’s specific Start Sentinel (SS) and the last character must be the specific End Sentinel (ES). The characters or data in between the SS and ES can include all of the valid characters specific to each track. The number of these characters, however, is limited by each track’s maximum character capacity. When segmenting track data, the appropriate Field Separator (FS) must be used. The following table shows the SS, ES, FS, and the valid characters defined for each track.

Appendix A: Magnetic Stripe Encoding Module

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