Prima ID Card Printer manual Sample of Magstripe Encoding

Ultra Electronics Card Systems

3.3.2SAMPLE OF MAGSTRIPE ENCODING

Sending Track Information

Magnetic track data are 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. 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” and be formatted using the “System” font. In other words, specific characters must be added to the magnetic track data for the printer driver to know which data are to be encoded, which tracks to encode, when the track data stops and starts and so on. When using the Generic Printer Driver, you 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 described below.

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

SS(Start Sentinel), and the last character must be the specific ES (End Sentinel). The characters or data in between the SS and the 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 FS (Field Separator) must be used. The following table shows the SS, ES, FS, and valid characters defined for each track. (Track character limits are enforced by the TR-1, TR-2, and TR-3/NNT format options selected in the Magnetic Encoding properties.)

Note:

This data must always appear on page one of your document.

The following example illustrates how track data should be entered for tracks 1, 2, and 3 under following Windows OS:

Windows 2000/XP:

Track	Start Sentinel	End Sentinel	Field Separator	Valid Characters
~1	%	?	^	0-9, A-Z, Punct., ASCII 32-95
~2;	;	?	=	ASCII 48-63
~3;	;	?	=	ASCII 48-63
~3;	+	?	=	ASCII 48-63
for XP only

Sample for Windows XP:

Sending Data to Track 1 : ~1%JULIE ANDERSON^623-85-1253?

Sending Data to Track 2 : ~2;012345…89?

Sending Data to Track 3 : ~3+012345…89?

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