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Improving on Card Printing Technology

Retransfer card printing technology has improved to offer a fast, affordable on-demand printing solution for meeting the high image quality and encoding standards that advanced card applications require. Those applications range from high-security ID cards, to retail loyalty cards, to financial cards and more. Zebra Card, a leading manufacturer of card printers, estimates that retransfer printing's market share will grow from 8-10% to 12-15% within 2 years. Retransfer technology uses a process called reverse thermal transfer. Traditional dye sub­limation card printers, or direct-to-card (DTC) printers, use a printhead to transfer the image through a dye ribbon directly onto the card surface. Retransfer printers use a two-step process. First, the retransfer process prints a high-resolution image in reverse directly onto a clear receiving layer carried by a flexible, intermediate film. Second, the printer uses heat and pressure to transfer the image and the entire image-receiving in­termediate film onto the card surface. Because of the limits on card materials and the unevenness of many card surfaces, DTC printers cannot achieve high color density and uniformity when transferring dye directly to a card. With retransfer card printers, the days of fuzzy photos and dull graphics become a thing of the past. Some card applications, such as retail loyalty or finance, it is important for the background image to extend to the edges, which looks more professional. DTC printers have a hard time keeping contact with the cards all the way to the edges during printing, so there is usually a small white border left around the outside perimeter of the card. Retransfer prints the image to the intermediate film in a slightly oversize form factor, so that the transfer to the card surface occurs with complete edge-to-edge coverage. Also because DTC printers' printheads must come in contact with the rigid card substrates, they wear out faster than retransfer printers' printheads. Zebra Card recently released the ZXP Series 8 Retransfer Card Printer. They have also written a white paper that goes into further detail on retransfer printing technology and its benefits over DTC printing.