When you’re printing plastic cards, you want the process to be easy and efficient. We have put together five products that improve your plastic card printing and give your cards a more professional look.

ID card printers

To begin printing your professional, high-quality ID cards, you need to ensure you are starting with an ID card printer which suits your requirements. We have a range of printers available, including both single-sided and dual-sided, as well as printers with encoding options.

An option we recommend for organisations with lower budget who only need to print small volumes is the IDP Smart 21S. This single-sided direct-to-card printer is compact and lightweight, equipped with a hand-fed card feeder to ensure quick ID issuance for low-volume card printing demands - perfect for busy organisations with limited workspace.

If you need a dual-sided printer or are looking for something to suit more complex requirements, we recommend the Evolis Primacy 2. The Primacy 2 is a high-performing plastic card printer from Evolis' popular Primacy range. The Primacy 2 offers a 200-card input hopper, ideal for large batch printing, and faster printing speeds to meet high demands. That's not all – for enhanced security, the printer features Kineclipse® to prevent ribbon theft for those printing cards in a public environment.

ID card printing software

The next step to ensure you get professional, high-quality ID cards is to have appropriate ID card printing software for the card design. Here at Plastic-ID, we have a variety of different software options to suit your requirements.

For a more budget-friendly option, why not start with the CardPresso XXS software? This software includes all the basic features for card design and printing using predefined templates, signature acquisition, Barcodes 1D, WIA/TWAIN and DirectShow acquisition, as well as magnetic encoding.

If you have a more flexible budget, you can upgrade to a higher-level version of the CardPresso software, like the XXL? Alongside the mentioned features of the XXS, you can also get even more useful features, such as QR codes, barcodes, fingerprint acquisition, audit reports and more.

A more complex higher level option for your ID card printing software is the CardExchange SBS enterprise master edition. With this software, you can keep your data and card designs in a central location that multiple users can access. CardExchange® SBS is ideal for multi-site organisations and businesses such as universities, hospitals, and large corporations.

ID card printer maintenance and storage

If you are in need of a safe way to store your ID card printer or perhaps to transport it to an event with no damage, we offer carry cases, as well as dust covers, to hold your printer safely. We offer these for several printers by different manufacturers, including Evolis, Magicard and Zebra.

To prolong your printer’s lifespan, it is essential to ensure it is well looked after. Dust covers help to ensure dirt and debris do not make their way into the important parts of your ID card printer, especially during transport.

We also recommend you invest in a plastic card printer cleaning kit to maintain a high-quality finish for your printed plastic cards as well as prolonging your printer’s lifespan. Dust and other tiny debris can degrade your printed image quality and even damage your printhead or other critical parts of your plastic card printer. With routine cleanings, you can expect optimal image quality and a longer life for your card printer. 

Regular cleaning of your plastic card printer will:
•    Help maintain card printer performance and reliability
•    Prolong the life of vital printheads, transport rollers and magnetic encoder parts
•    Give you improved quality on full-colour card images

Personalised lanyards

After you have printed your brand-new ID cards, you may want to take your company’s professionalism one step further. The perfect way to do this is by displaying your ID cards with personalised lanyards.

With many colours to choose from, you can customise lanyards with your company’s branding to add a personal and professional touch. We can print any design onto your personalised lanyards, whether that be a company logo or even a design you create yourself. If you would like assistance with your design work, our expert bureau team will be happy to help with any design queries for your custom lanyards.

If you require plain lanyards instead, we have a vast range of colours to choose from, so you can match your lanyards with your company’s colours.

Plastic card printer technical support

Your plastic card printer journey with us doesn’t need to end at the point of delivery! We want to support you as much as we can with all of your printing needs.

IDAssist is our specialised technical support service, designed to get you printing again quickly if you experience any technical difficulties with your direct-to-card printers. Priority technical support is provided over the phone, email, or webchat – whatever suits you best.

With IDAssist, we offer training for your staff in setting up, running and maintaining your printer, helping to prolong its lifespan. This training is particularly important in demanding, intensive usage environments.
As well as many other benefits, IDAssist customers have exclusive access to free next-day delivery on all products from our central UK warehouse.

To get more information on how to improve your plastic card printing, please get in touch with a member of our expert team.