Zebra EPCL Guide

FORE WORD

This man ual con tains Pro gram ming in for ma tion for Ze bra Se ries Card Print ers man u fac tured by
Ze bra Tech nol o gies Cor po ra tion, Camarillo, Cal i for nia.

Pro pri etary State ment

This man ual con tains pro pri etary in for ma tion of the man u fac turer. It is in tended solely for the in ­for ma tion and use of par ties op er at ing and main tain ing the equip ment de scribed herein. Such pro ­pri etary in for ma tion may not be used, re pro duced, or dis closed to any other par ties for any other
pur pose with out the ex pressed writ ten per mis sion of the man u fac turer.

Prod uct Im prove ments

Con tin u ous im prove ment of prod ucts is a pol icy of the man u fac turer. All spec i fi ca tions and signs
are sub ject to change with out no tice.

Li a bil ity Dis claimer

The man u fac turer takes steps to as sure that its pub lished En gi neer ing spec i fi ca tions and Man u als
are cor rect; how ever, er rors do oc cur. The man u fac turer re serves the right to cor rect any such er ­rors and dis claims li a bil ity re sult ing there from.

No Li a bil ity for Con se quen tial Dam age

In no event shall the man u fac turer or any one else in volved in the cre ation, pro duc tion, or de liv ery
of the ac com pa ny ing prod uct (in clud ing hard ware and soft ware) be li a ble for any dam ages what ­so ever (in clud ing, with out lim i ta tion, dam ages for loss of busi ness prof its, busi ness in ter rup tion,
loss of busi ness in for ma tion, or other pe cu ni ary loss) aris ing out of the use of or the re sults of use of
or in abil ity to use such prod uct, even if the man u fac turer has been ad vised of the pos si bil ity of such
dam ages. Be cause some states do not al low the ex clu sion or lim i ta tion of li a bil ity for con se quen tial
or in ci den tal dam ages, the above lim i ta tion may not ap ply to you.

Trade marks and Copy rights

The Ze bra logo and the ze bra head de sign are both reg is tered trade marks of ZIH Corp.
Win dows and MS-DOS are reg is tered trade marks of Microsoft Corp.

Soft ware® Ze bra Tech nol o gies Cor po ra tion; all rights re served world wide.

All other marks are trade marks or reg is tered trade marks of their re spec tive hold ers.

This copy righted man ual and the software de scribed herein are owned by the man u fac turer. All
rights are re served. Copy right vi o la tors may be sub ject to civil li a bil ity.

©2006 ZIH Corp. All rights re served.

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Ta ble of Con tents

IN TRO DUC TION .........................1-1

......................................1-2

Com mon Fea tures ............................1-2

Pro gram ming Ob jec tives .........................1-2

Ba sic Com mand Syn tax .........................1-7

Com mand Ed i tor.............................1-8

Im age Mem ory Ar range ments ......................1-8

Bit-Map Com pres sion Al go rithm .....................1-9

Data-to-Card Map ping .........................1-13

Con trol Com mands ...........................1-19

Card Han dling Pro cess .........................1-20

Com mand Link ing ...........................1-20

Sam ple Card ..............................1-21

Par al lel Port Sig nals...........................1-22

Er ror Line Cod ing............................1-22

COM MAND REF ER ENCE .....................2-1

A - Print Test Card............................2-6

!AO - Check Patch Sen sors .......................2-7

!AT - Check Heat Off set .........................2-8

ATM - Set Card Feed ing Mode .....................2-9

&B - Load Mag netic En coder Track Write Buffer ............2-10

+B - Se rial In ter face Rate .......................2-12

+BS - Set Black Syn chro........................2-13

B/vB - Write Bar Code .........................2-14

&C - Set Coercivity ..........................2-16

+C - Ad justs Mono chrome In ten sity ..................2-17

+$C - Ad just Color Con trast ......................2-18

!CC - Get Num ber of Cards Printed ..................2-19

!CCLN - Check Clean ing Pa ram e ters .................2-20

+CCLN - Set Clean ing Pa ram e ters ..................2-21

%CDER - Get Mag netic En coder Read Set tings ............2-22

&CDER - Set Mag netic En coder Track Read En code Pa ram e ters ...2-23
&CDEW - Set Mag netic En coder Track Write En code Pa ram e ters ...2-25

+CDOTS - Im age Print Qual ity Com pen sa tion Fac tor .........2-27

+CH - Ad just Ho lo gram In ten sity ...................2-28

CHECK - Re turn Checksum ......................2-29

CLEAN - Set Clean ing Card Se quence.................2-30

!CLEAN - Clean the Laminator ....................C-31

%CLN - Check Due-for-Clean ing Pa ram e ters .............2-32

CLNCARD - Set Clean ing Pa ram e ters .................2-33

CRB - Set Re ject Box Card Count Warn ing Thresh old .........2-34

!CT - Check Cool ing Time .......................2-35

+CT - Set Cool ing Time ........................2-36

+CV - Ad just Clear Var nish In ten sity..................2-37

C/vC - Write Box (Mono chrome)....................2-38

!D - Move Print Head Down ......................2-39

&D - Change Track Den sity ......................2-40

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+DLAMI - Set Lam i na tion Con fig u ra tion ...............2-41

+DLAMI - Set Lam i na tion Con fig u ra tion (Con tin ued) ........2-42

+DLAMI - Set Lam i na tion Con fig u ra tion (Con tin ued) ........2-43

+DLAMI - Set Lam i na tion Con fig u ra tion (Con tin ued) ........2-44

D/vD - Draw Di ag o nal Line (Mono chrome/Over lay)..........2-45

E - Re trans mit Last Re sponse .....................2-46

&E - Write Sin gle Track .......................2-47

&E* - Write Track Buff ers ......................2-48

+EC - End of Print ..........................2-49

$F - Clear Color Im age Buff ers ....................2-50

!FF - Set Rib bon Color Se quence ..................2-51

$FP - Clear Spec i fied Bit-Maps ....................2-52

FS - Con trol Use of Card Feed Sen sor ................2-53

F/vF - Clear Mono chrome Im age Buff ers ...............2-54

GS - Down load Color Graphic ....................2-55

G/vG - Ini tial ize Mono chrome Graphic (B/W).............2-56

%HEAD - Get Print Head Se rial Num ber ...............2-57

I - Print Mono chrome Panel .....................2-58

IH - Print Ho lo gram Over lay .....................2-59

IM - Print Color Test Card ......................2-60

IMB - Print Gray Test Card ......................2-61

IS - Print Card Panel .........................2-62

IV - Print Clear Var nish ........................2-63

+ISC - Set Smart Card Se rial Port Data Rate.............2-64

+ISC2 - Set Smart Card Se rial Port Data Rate (Ad vanced)......2-65

ISERIES - i-Se ries Printer Test ....................2-66

J - Print Mul ti ple Mono chrome Cards .................2-67

!L - Check Sta tus: P720 Laminator Sen sor Lev els ..........2-68

!L - Check Sta tus of Printer Sen sors .................2-69

$L - Draw a Hor i zon tal Line/Rect an gle in a Color Buffer .......2-71

&L - Read Sin gle Track .......................2-72

+$L - Ad just Spec i fied Color In ten sity ................2-74

!LC - Check Lam i na tion Coun ter ..................2-75

$LD - Ini tial ize a Color Buffer to a Spec i fied In ten sity Level .....2-76

!LT - Check Lam i na tion Tem per a ture ................2-77

+LT - Set Lam i na tion Tem per a ture .................2-78

!LTI - Check Lam i na tion Time ....................2-79

+LTI - Set Lam i na tion Time .....................2-80

L/vL - Draw Hor i zon tal Line (Mono chrome/Over lay) .........2-81

!M - Move Print Head Up .......................2-82

MB - Re turn Card To Card Feeder ..................2-83

MC - Clear Me dia Path ........................2-84

MCL - Move Contactless .......................2-85

ME - Exit Card To Out put Hop per ..................2-86

MF - Flip Card ............................2-87

MI - Move Card Into Print Ready Po si tion ..............2-88

MIB - Move Card Back To Print Ready Po si tion ...........2-89

MM - Move Card Through Printer ..................2-90

M/m - Mul ti ple Com mand .......................2-91

MO - Move Card To Out put Hop per .................2-92

MR - Check for Card Pres ence ....................2-93

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MRB - Move Card to Re ject Box ....................2-94

MS - Move Card To Smart Card Pro gram mer .............2-95

MS - Move Card To Smart Card Pro gram mer .............2-96

&– Se lect Mag netic En cod ing Stan dard ................2-97

!NL - Get Printer Im pres sion and Er ror Coun ters ............2-98

!O - Check Card Off set .........................2-99

+O - Print Off set X-Axis .......................2-100

+OCL - Off set Contactless ......................2-101

!OFP - Check X-Axis Patch Off set ..................2-102

+OFP - Ad just X-Axis Laminator Patch Off set ............2-103

+OLP - Off set Overlaminate Patch ..................2-104

!OP - Check Patch Off sets ......................2-105

+OP - Ad just Laminator Patch X and Y Off set ............2-106

+OS - Smart Card X-axis Off set ...................2-107

O/vO - Load Sin gle Line Bit-map (Mono chrome) ...........2-108

+OY - Print Off set Y-axis .......................2-110

!P - Move Card For ward 8 cm ....................2-111

&P - Check Card Pres ent - En coder .................2-112

+PRF - Pre-Feed a Card Close to the Print Area ...........2-113

PS - Down load Color Im age Buffer ..................2-114

P/vP - Draw Sin gle Dot (Mono chrome/Over lay) ............2-115

R - Re set ...............................2-116

!R - Print Head Re sis tance ......................2-117

&R - Re set Mag netic En coder ....................2-118

>R - Read Data From Smart Card Se rial In ter face ..........2-119

+RB - Set Re ject Box Us age .....................2-120

>RB - Read Data From Smart Card Se rial In ter face in ASCII hex Form

....................................2-121

RCBC - Re set Re jected Card Box Coun ter ..............2-122

>RG - Con tact In ter nal Gemplus Smart Card Read Com mand....2-123

+RIB - Set Rib bon Type .......................2-124

!RIB BON - Check Rib bon Type ...................2-125

!RIB BON - Get rib bon type in stalled..................2-126

+RIB BON - Set Rib bon Type ....................2-127

!RIBPN- Get rib bon part num ber ...................2-128

!RIBLEN- Get num ber of re main ing pan els on rib bon . 2-129

+RO - X-Axis Off set, Rel a tive.....................2-130

+ROY - Y-Axis Offet, Rel a tive ....................2-131

!SA - Self Ad just ...........................2-132

!SAN - Per form pre-cal i bra tion base line test ing ............2-134

!SB - Check Stand-By Mode Set tings .................2-135

+SB - Con fig ure Laminator Stand-By Mode .............2-136

SDATA - Force im me di ate save of pa ram e ters ............2-137

!SERIE - Get Laminator Se rial Num ber ................2-138

%SERIE - Get Printer Se rial Num ber .................2-139

SF - Syn chro nize Film (Overlaminate) ................2-140

!SIDE - Check Lam i na tion Mode ...................2-141

+SIDE - Set Lam i na tion Mode ....................2-142

&SVM - Dis able/En able Mag netic En cod ing Ver i fi ca tions .......2-143

&T - Mag netic En coder Card Eject ..................2-144

+TC - Set Laminator Head Tem per a ture ...............2-145

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TF - Film Type ...........................2-146

T/vT - Draw Text (Mono chrome/Over lay) ..............2-147

T/vT - ASCII Text (Con tin ued) ....................2-148

V - Check Printer Type/Ver sion ...................2-149

!V - Re turn Op er a tional Pa ram e ter .................2-150

+V - Black Print Speed .......................2-151

+VL - Set Lam i na tion Speed ....................2-152

!W - Move Card Back ward 8 cm ..................2-153

&W - Change En cod ing Di rec tion .................2-154

>W - Write Data To Smart Card Se rial Port.............2-155

>WB - Write Data For mat ted in ASCII HEX To Smart Card Se rial Port

...................................2-156

>WG - Con tact In ter nal Gemplus Smart Card Write Com mand ..2-157

!X - Check Com mand Ini ti a tor....................2-158

+X - Change Com mand Ini ti a tion Char ac ter ............2-159

!Z - Re-Syn chro nize Card ......................2-160

Z/vZ - Load Bit-map (Mono chrome) .................2-161

. - Clear Er ror Sta tus Lines .....................2-163

Ap pen dix A ............................A-1

Res i dent Fonts ..............................A-2

Code 39

(Code 3 of 9) ..............................A-2

Stan dard 2 of 5

(Code 2/5) ................................A-4

In ter leaved 2 of 5

(Code I 2/5) ...............................A-5

UPC-A ..................................A-6

EAN-8 ..................................A-7

EAN-13 .................................A-8

Code 128

Sub sets B & C ..............................A-9

EAN In ter na tional Reg u la tion Agen cies .................A-11

Ap pen dix B ............................B-1

Par al lel Port Printer Data Hand shake Sig nal Lines.............B-1

Par al lel Port Printer Er ror Re sponse ....................B-1

Se rial Port Printer Data Hand shake ....................B-1

Se rial Port Printer

Er ror Re sponse .............................B-2

Ap pen dix C ............................C-1

Mag netic Encoders............................C-1

En coder Op er a tion ...........................C-1

Data Er rors ...............................C-3

En coder De fault Con fig u ra tion......................C-3

Ba sic Com mands ............................C-4

Ad vanced En coder Com mands .....................C-4

Re set ting The En coder To ANSI/ISO Track De faults ............C-5

Change Track Den sity ..........................C-5

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Chang ing Read Con fig u ra tion ......................C-5

Chang ing Write Con fig u ra tions .....................C-5

Cus tom ISO Data ............................C-6

Unique Cus tom Data For mats ......................C-7

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IN TRO DUC TION

This man ual de scribes pro gram ming com mands that
con trol op er a tions and de liver data for the fol low ing
card printer mod els:

Mod els

P110i • •
P120i • • •
P205
P210 • •
P310F
P310C •
P310i • •

P320i • • •

P330i • •
P420 • •
P420i • • • •
P430i • • •
P520 • • •*
P520i • • • •* •
P720 • • • •†

* Model that laminates duplex using same lamination patch type for both card sides
† Model ca pa ble of ap ply ing different upper and lower lamination patch types onto cards

RFID

Color

Print ing

Fea tures

Du plex

Print ing

Du plex

Lam i na tion

Log-On

Se cu rity

All mod els em ploy a Com mon Com mand Set plus
ad di tional Com mand Sets for any model-specific
fea tures. All mod els ship with Win dows driv ers.
As so ci ated pro gram ming for use in the Win dows
en vi ron ment is not nec es sary.

1-1

Common Features All cov ered mod els can print bar-codes in sev eral for mats

and have res i dent scal able font de scrip tions. Also, all
mod els can in clude a Smart-Card Docking Sta tion. P310
and P420 vari ants can have a Prox im ity Card dock ing
Sta tion. All mod els are of fered with or with out a Mag netic
Stripe En coder. A Se rial Host In ter face is op tional on the
P205, P210, P310, and P420 vari ants, where an
as so ci ated RS-232C Setup Com mand ex ists. All mod els
can have USB Ports, ei ther stan dard or as an option.

The pro gram ming com mands con trol the print ing pro cess
by color and by rib bon ma te rial, al low ing over print ing
and sep a rate con trol of var i ous pro tec tive cov er ings.

Pro gramming

Objectives

The Es cape Com mands al low printer set ups, many of
which de ter mine how a Printer Mod ule El e ment re acts
upon re ceiv ing an in com ing card. For ex am ple, a data
down load must oc cur be fore the Printer Mod ule can print
a card or en code a mag netic stripe.

Ex cept for the Card Feeder, each mod ule has an In put
Sen sor that trig gers the re sponses de ter mined pre vi ously
by setup com mands.

Card Sen sors also al low the Firm ware to keep track of the
po si tion of the card in the Card Path. There fore, the need
for card po si tion ing oc curs as an au to matic re sponse to
re lated com mands. For ex am ple, with no card in the
Card Path, a Print Com mand pro duces a Card Feed.
Sim i larly, if a Print Com mand oc curs af ter a card has
passed be yond the Print Head, the card first re turns to the
Print Head.

Rib bons come in dif fer ent panel con fig u ra tions, and how
the printer re sponds to a Print Com mand var ies
ac cord ing to the Rib bon Type Com mand Pa ram e ters
spec i fied. For each rib bon type, a re lated print se quence
ex ists. How ever, all mod els equipped with the RFID
fea ture sense the rib bon type, and firm ware takes care of
this pa ram e ter.

While some com mands af fect just one printer mod ule,
oth ers can pro duce re sponses from more than one. Also,
some com mands serve as set ups for a par tic u lar printer
and, there fore, need not be re es tab lished for each print
job. No ta bly, all com mand pa ram e ters end up in Flash
mem ory.

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Rib bons Rib bon types ex ist in the fol low ing con fig u ra tions:

• Con tin u ously Coated Mono chrome Rib bons are

Ther mal Trans fer Rib bons hav ing a resin coat ing and no
panel sep a ra tions. Ze bra of fers these in sev eral rib bon
col ors along with a Scratch-Off Gray, us able in all mod ­els but an ob vi ous choice for use in Mono chrome
Printers.

• Black Sublimination Dye al ter nated with Var -
nish Panels that im age black and white gray-scale el e ­ments. An ex cel lent choice for im ag ing black-and-white
photo im ages, fol lowed by an ap pli ca tion of a UV pro ­tec tive coat ing.

• Black Resin al ter nated with Var nish Panels that
im age fully sat u rated black and ap ply a pro tec tive coat ­ing. Ideal for im ag ing solid graphic el e ments such as
Text and Bar Codes.

• Yel low, Ma genta, and Cyan Panels for im ag ing
only Dye Sublimination Color. Typically used in print ers
with no re quire ment for Resin or Var nish. No ta bly, Yel ­low, Ma genta, and Cyan Panels can com bine to pro ­duce Black, and a Laminator re moves a need for
Var nish.

• Yel low, Ma genta, and Cyan Panels for im ag ing

Dye Sublimination Color fol lowed by Black
Resin and Var nish Panels. Dye Sublimination Im -

ages should have a pro tec tive coat ing, and Black Resin
serves as an ex cel lent choice for Text and Bar Codes.
Thus, Color Printers with out Laminators typ i cally use
these rib bons.

• Yel low, Ma genta, and Cyan Panels for im ag ing

Dye Sublimination Color fol lowed by a sin gle
Black Resin Panel. While a Laminator pre cludes the

need for var nish, a solid resin black pro duces the best
Bar Codes and of fers an other, some times better, way to
im age Black Text and other black graphic el e ments.

• Yel low, Ma genta, and Cyan Panels for im ag ing

Dye Sublimination Color fol lowed by a two
Black Resin Panels. This rib bon of fers im ag ing for

color plus resin on one card side and only resin on the
other side while us ing sin gle set of rib bon pan els.

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Printer Rib bons

K

(all monochrome colors) 1 • • • • •

resin

Scratch-off Gray 1 • • • •
K

O 2 • • •

resin

K

O 2 • • •

dye

YMC 3 • •
YMCK 4 • •
YMCK
YMCK
YMCK
* P310 monochrome and P205 printers only use 1-panel ribbons.

O 5 • • •

resin

resinKresin

resinOKresin

*Panel

Count

P205
P210

5 • •
6 •

Mod els

P310

P420 P520 P720

P320

Mod u lar El e ments:

• Print En gine—Be ing the pri mary con trol ling el e ment in

all printer mod els, the Print En gine CPU re ceives Host
Com mands. Re ceived com mands can en com pass op er ­a tions that di rectly con trol the Print En gine and op er a ­tions that draw on other Printer El e ments for ex e cu tion.
Whereas some el e ments have their own CPUs, the Print
En gine CPU ex er cises com plete con trol over other el e ­ments. Only in P520s and P720s can a com mand be di ­rected to an other el e ment (the Laminator CPU). An
as so ci ated El e ment-Spe cific Com mand Pre fix ex ists for
this pur pose. Be sides its print func tion, Print Engines
have Op tions that in clude a Mag netic Stripe En coder
and/or a Smart Card Docking Sta tion. Some Models also
of fer Prox im ity (Contactless) Card Docking as an al ter na ­tive to Smart Card Docking.

• Card Feeder—This el e ment de livers cards placed in the

Card In put Hop per to the Card Path in side the Printer un ­der con trol of the Print En gine CPU.

• Card Flip—Printers with this el e ment can flip cards in

prep a ra tion for du plex print ing or, in the case of a P520,
Sec ond Side Lam i na tion. Card Flip Sta tions can also de ­liver cards with sensed flaws to the Re jected Card Box.
This el e ment has its own CPU that car ries out the de tails
of in struc tions re ceived.

• Sin gle Side Laminator—P520 Printers can place a

pro tec tive trans par ent patch on one card sur face at a
time. This el e ment also has its own CPU that car ries out
the de tails of in struc tions re ceived.

• Du plex Laminator—Printers with this el e ment lam i -

nate both card sur faces in a sin gle lam i na tion pass. This
el e ment also has its own CPU that car ries out the de tails
of in struc tions re ceived.

• Op er a tor LCD Con trol Panel—Printers with this el e -

ment con vey mes sages to op er a tors via a 1- or 2-line by

1-4

16- char ac ter LCD screen and al low op er a tor re sponses
and Printer Con trol. Power and Alert LEDs also ap pear.
This el e ment also has its own CPU that car ries out the
de tails of in struc tions re ceived.

Sig nif i cant model/con fig u ra tion dif fer ences
re lated to pro gram ming in clude the fol low ing:

• P310 Mono chrome card print ers have a smaller com -
mand set along with an im age buffer suf fi cient for a
one-bit im age map ping depth. Im aging us ing Ther mal
Trans fer Meth od ol ogy oc curs, sup ported by Ther mal
Trans fer Printer Rib bons. (Only fully-saturated dots im ­age in a sin gle print pass.) Any gray-scale im ag ing re ­quires host data mapped into mul ti ple-dot ma trixes,
sized for the de sired gray-scale range (e.g., a
four-by-four dot pixel ma trix can pro duce 16 lev els of
gray plus white, [(4 x 4)2/16 + white]). Gray Levels de ­rive from the num ber of dots im aged in side the ma trix.

• P310 Color card print ers em ploy dye sub li ma tion
meth od ol ogy for color im ag ing and ther mal trans fer
meth od ol ogy for im ag ing from Resin Mono chrome Rib ­bons or Rib bon Panels. A yel low, ma genta, and cyan
im ag ing se quence oc curs. Each rib bon panel pro duces
im ages from five-bit-per-dot data.

The black pan els on Ze bra-sup plied rib bons with color
pan els have a resin coat ing that par tic u larly suits
bar-code and other solid im age print ing (i.e., no gray
scale). How ever, resin re sponds poorly as a dye sub li ­ma tion print me dium. There fore, the black used for
gray-scale im ag ing co mes from for mu la tions of yel low,
ma genta, and cyan (YMC), which means
dye-sublimation black also has a five-bit-per-dot range
(32 lev els of gray). If the need for a
resin-panel-generated gray scale should ever be come
nec es sary, as so ci ated host data must be mapped into
mul ti ple-dot pixel ma trixes as noted in the P310 Mono ­chrome de scrip tion.

1-5

• P310 Color Card Print ers have five im age buff -

ers—three for color and an other for two for mono ­chrome. The color buffer re ceives down loads of Cyan,
Ma genta, and Yel low im age data, each five bits deep.
The Mono chrome Buffer re ceives black and/or var nish
data one bit deep. Sep a rate data for Resin Black and
Over lay Var nish can of ten be avoided. Be cause of its du ­ra bil ity, card ar eas with resin im ages may not re quire var ­nish for the as so ci ated ul tra vi o let pro tec tion. There fore,
by us ing a re verse im ag ing for var nish, the same bit-map
used for resin pro duces a var nish over lay that omits the
ar eas with resin. Also, through re verse im ag ing, a Clear
Com mand can pre pare Mono chrome Mem ory for a
full-cov er age var nish.

• P420s em ploy the same Print Engines as the P310 Color

de scribed above. Be cause P420s also have a Card-Flip
as sem bly and a Re jected Card Box, these mod els have
some ad di tional re lated com mands. P420s also have an
in ter face that sup ports the pro gram ming of Prox im ity
Cards (also called Contactless Cards). Mem ory size is
dou bled to sup port two-sided print ing.

• P520s have all the same im ple men ta tions as a P420, in -

clud ing Smart Card sta tions, and Mag netic Encoders as
op tions. How ever, P520s also have a Card Laminator
Sta tion. Laminators serve as heat-transfer de vices for
ma te rial or pan els con tained on Lam i na tion Rib bons. A
va ri ety of these kinds of rib bons ex ist, as fol lows:

• Rib bons with trans par ent die-cut patches that of fer
near edge-to-edge card cov er age

• Die cuts with cut outs for Smart Card Con tacts, and
smaller die cuts that serve to avoid Mag netic Stripes

• Preprinted Patches that con tain se cu rity de vices such
as graph ics, ho lo grams, or other op ti cally-encoded
safe guards

1-6

P520 Laminators can also serve a heat-transfer func ­tion for rib bons con tain ing a coat ing in stead of
die-cut pan els. How ever, only a to tal card ap pli ca tion
can oc cur. Be cause the Print Sta tion can have a Dye
Sub li ma tion Rib bon with Var nish Panels, many
choices ex ist for se lec tion of pro tec tive coat ings. Ad ­di tional com mands ex ist to im ple ment Laminator
use.

• In stead of just an <Esc>, a P520 Com mand meant
for the Laminator needs a pre ced ing:

<Esc>#<Space>1<Space>

• P720s have P420 el e ments plus a Laminator mod ule

<Esc>T p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7 data<Rtn>

Command Name

Command

Parameters

WRITE TEXT

ASCII Programming Code

Text

Hexadecimal Programming Code

Escape (Command Initiator)

Carriage Return (Command Terminator)

1B54203130302031303020302031203230203330203120546578740D

<Esc>T 100 100 0 1 20 30 1 Text<Rtn>

Space (Delimiters)

that fully im ple ments si mul ta neous near edge-to-edge
patch ap pli ca tions from above and be low the Card
Path. In te gral sen sors as sure ac cu rate patch place ments
and sig nal the Rib bon Types in use and the amount re ­main ing on their cores.

Basic Command

Syntax

Each com mand be gins with a Com mand Ini ti a tor (the
Es cape Char ac ter). For P520s, di rect ing char ac ters can
fol low the Es cape Char ac ter.

The Com mand Ini ti a tor serves to mark the char ac ter(s)
im me di ately fol low ing as com mand char ac ters.
Com mand char ac ters vary be tween one and seven
char ac ters (or up to seven bytes of hex a dec i mal data).

Some Com mands then have one or more Pa ram e ters to
sup ply the printer with in for ma tion nec es sary to
com plete the com mand. A Space Char ac ter de lin eates
in di vid ual Com mand Con trol Pa ram e ters. The fol low ing
Text Com mand shows a typ i cal ex am ple.

Each Com mand Line re quires a Car riage Re turn
Char ac ter (13 dec. or 0D hex.). The Printer ig nores a
sin gle Line Feed (LF) char ac ter (Dec. 10 or 0A Hex.)
when it im me di ately fol lows the com mand ter mi nat ing
Car riage Re turn. Most PC Based Sys tems send a CR/LF
when the En ter Key is pressed.

1-7

Command Editor Any ASCII based Text Ed i tor can serve to cre ate sim ple

com mand files. In the DOS en vi ron ment, MS-DOS EDIT
of fers a good choice. To ex e cute the file, use the Print
Com mand from the ed i tor, or from DOS, the COPY
Com mand, to send the file to the printer. Ex am ples us ing
the COPY Com mand are:

COPY file name.ext LPT1

For more in for ma tion on the use of the COPY com mand,
re fer to a DOS Soft ware Man ual.

Some text ed it ing pro grams can cause printer er rors by add ­ing ex tra char ac ters or by chang ing ex ist ing char ac ters
when gen er at ing a near ASCII for mat ted file.

Ex am ple: A com mon ASCII ed i tor, BRIEF, changes all NUL
char ac ters to the SPACE or TAB char ac ters with a File
Save. The graphic data for print in ten sity level “0" is the
NUL char ac ter. This causes the re sult ing file to print with
hor i zon tal lines in all graph ics with solid white (i.e.,
no-print) ar eas. Other ed i tors may add a SUB char ac ter
(Dec. 26 or 1A Hex.), which causes the printer to er ror.

Image Mem ory

Ar range ments

1-8

Fig ure 1-1 shows el e ments in volved in im age data flow.
Note that two Im age Mem ory Con fig u ra tions ex ist and
that Im age Mem ory al ways con tains com pressed data.
Ideally, hosts should send com pressed data, which
re quires a com pat i ble com pres sion al go rithm. This can
sub stan tially re duce the data trans fer times of most im age
files.

Mono chrome Print ers need no Color Buff ers and of fer
less mem ory ca pac ity. Color Print ers may need as many
as five buff ers and, there fore, have a greater mem ory
ca pac ity. In most cases, com pressed data for an en tire
card im age fits into avail able mem ory in a sin gle
down load se quence.

Color-sep a rated data en ters re lated buff ers due to a
buffer-spec i fy ing pa ram e ter in the Color Data Com mand.

Host Computer

Image Data

Compression

Algorithm

Image

Buffers

Image Data

Decompression

Algorithm

Print Head

Registers

CARD PRINTER

Bypassed

when Host

Compressed

Color Printer

Memory

Monochrome

Printer Memory

Mono.

Buffer

Yellow

Buffer

Magenta

buffer

Cyan

Buffer

Black

Buffer

Varnish

Buffer

Yellow

Buffer

Magenta

buffer

Cyan

Buffer

Black

Buffer

Varnish

Buffer

SINGLE

DUPLEX

Figure 1-1

Image Memory

Arrangements

Bit- Map

Com pres sion

Al go rithm

Char ac ter is tically, a Bit-Map Com pres sion Al go rithm
flags data seg ments as ei ther re peat ing or non-repeating,
spec i fies the bytes re peated, and the num ber of re peats.
For these card print ers, com pres sion ap plies to
byte-wide bit-map seg ments, which the host sends with
the PS, GS, Z, and vZ com mands. The PS and GS
com mands in clude pa ram e ters spec i fy ing a buffer
(YMCK). Mono chrome com mands Z and vZ send
as so ci ated bit-map data to the Black (K) and Var nish
Buffers, re spec tively. All of these com mands in clude
pa ram e ters that spec ify whether or not the com mand
ap plies to com pressed data. For rec og ni tion by the card
printer, com pressed data must con form to the fol low ing
rules:

Rule 1. When high, the most sig nif i cant bit (the Flag
Bit) of a two-byte se quence in di cates that the sec ond
byte re peats. The re main ing seven bits of the first byte
spec ify the num ber of re peats, al low ing a
field-specification range of from zero to 127 re peats.

1-9

Rule 2. When low, the Flag Bit of a data se quence
in di cates that the re main ing seven bits of the byte spec ify
the num ber of fol low ing bytes that rep re sent
non-re peat ing im age data. Here, how ever, the range
al lows a spec i fi ca tion of from zero to 31 bytes of data.

Rule 3. The first byte in the Data Field of any com mand
spec i fy ing a Com pressed Bit-Map must have the
Com pres sion Flag high, even if a one must be en tered as
the num ber of bytes re peated.

Rule 4. No other al go rithm can be used to com press
im age data for this card printer.

Fig ure 1-2 in cludes ex am ples of data strings em ploy ing
com pres sion.

1-10

1XXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

Data Compression Flag Set

No. of Repeats (1~127)

Data Byte Repeated

Dye Sub. Panel 1-Dot Data Field

1XXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

Data Compression Flag Set

No. of Repeats (1~127)

Data Byte Repeated

Mono. Panel 8-Dot Data Field

0XXX XXXX

Data Compression Flag Off

No. of Non-Compressed Bytes

Non-Compressed Data

---Bytes (0~31)---

0001 1111 0001 1111 0001 1111 0001 1111 0001 1111 0000 0011 0000 0011 0000 0011

1F Hex (5 repeats) 03 Hex (3 repeats)

85 1F 83 03

Compressed Data

1000 0101 0001 1111 1000 0011 0000 0011

Compression Example 1

0001 1111 0001 1111 0001 1111 0001 1111 0001 1111 0000 0100 0000 1011 0000 0011

1F Hex (5 repeats) 04 0B 03 Hex (0 repeats)

85 1F 03 04 0B 03

Compressed Data

1000 0101 0001 1111 0000 0011 0000 0100 0000 1011 0000 0011

Compression Example 2

Figure 1-2

Bit-Map

Compression

1-11

Fig ure 1-3 shows how a bit-map re lates to as so ci ated

1B 5A

00 00 00 00 00 00

00 00 00 00 00 00

00 00 00 00 00 00

00 00 00 00 00 00

00 03 F0 00 00 00

00 0F FC 00 00 00

00 1F FE 00 00 00

00 3F FF 00 00 00

00 3F FF 00 00 00

00 7F FF 80 00 00

00 7F FF 80 00 00

00 7F FF 80 00 00

00 FC 0F C0 00 00

00 F0 03 C0 00 00

00 E0 01 C0 00 00

00 C0 00 C0 01 00

00 C0 00 C0 01 00

00 C0 00 C0 01 00

00 C0 00 C0 03 00

00 FF FF FF FF 00

00 FF FF FF FF 00

00 FF FF FF FF 00

00 FF FF FF FF 00

00 FF FF FF FF 00

00 FF FF FF FF 00

00 FF FF FF FF 00

00 FF FF FF FF 00

00 C0 00 00 03 00

00 80 00 00 01 00

00 80 00 00 01 00

00 80 00 00 01 00

00 00 00 00 00 00

0D

1 Byte

x axis

non-compressed data. Fig ure 1-4 shows the same
bit-map in as so ci a tion with com pressed data.

Figure 1-3

Non-Compressed

Bit-Map

1-12

1B 5A

99 00 02

03 F0 84 00 02

0F FC 84 00 02

1F FE 84 00 02

3F FF 84 00 02

3F FF 84 00 3C

7F FF 80 00 00

00 7F FF 80 00 00

00 7F FF 80 00 00

00 FC 0F C0 00 00

00 F0 03 C0 00 00

00 E0 01 C0 00 00

00 C0 00 C0 01 00

00 C0 00 C0 01 00

00 C0 00 C0 01 00

00 C0 00 C0 03 00

00 84 FF 02 00

00 84 FF 02 00

00 84 FF 02 00

00 84 FF 02 00

00 84 FF 02 00

00 84 FF 02 00

00 84 FF 02 00

00 84 FF 18 00

00 C0 00 00 03 00

00 80 00 00 01 00

00 80 00 00 01 00

00 80 00 00 01 87

00

0D

1 Byte

Figure 1-4

Compressed

Bit-Map

Data- to-Card

Map ping

Fig ure 1-5 shows a card con sis tent with the ori en ta tion
of a card trav el ing right to left in the Card Path of a
printer. From this per spec tive, the data field of the PS,
GS, Z, and vZ com mands first be comes a
mem ory-res i dent im age in a des ig nated im age buffer.
The Im age Buffer, as shown, fills from top to bot tom and
from right to left. Be cause the Im age Buffer has a
last-in-first-out (LIFO) ar range ment, card im ages build
from bot tom to top and from left to right. This suits the
front-to-back load ing of Print Head Reg is ters and the
right-to-left card move ment dur ing print cy cles. As noted
in the fig ure, an ob ject mir rored in both axis in the data
sent to the buffer would print nor mally on the card.

1-13

PS p1 p2 data.............................data

Download Buffer Data Command
Buffer Select (YMCK) Parameter
Compressed vs. Uncompressed Parameter
Data Downloaded (300dpi/11,8dpmm)

Last In

First Out

MAXIMUM CARD IMAGING

646 Line Bytes by 1030 Lines

Image Buffer

IS p1

Print Buffer Command
Buffer Select (CMYK) Parameter

Print Direction

Card Size

3.375 x 2.125 in

85,7 x 53,9 mm

Partial­Image
Origin

ASSOCIATED COMMANDS

Monochrome

G

O

Z

P

L*
C*
D*

T

B

I

Overlay

IH

IV
vZ
vP

vL*
vC*
vD*

vT
vB

Color

PS
GS

IS

* Objects drawn with these commands have an upper-left origin.

Figure 1-5

Data Sent verses

Card Mapping

Laminator Data
Considerations

1-14

As so ci ated print ers have no need to print var nish.
How ever, the Var nish Buffer stores mono chrome data.
There fore, all data com mands for mono chrome data
re quire the “v” pref ace. A sub se quent “I” com mand
prints data stored in the Var nish Buffer. Note that the IV
Com mand serves to in di cate the pres ence of a rib bon
with var nish pan els that then get by passed.

Color Printer Data
Con sid era tions

When con vert ing from another color sys tem to CMY, the
best pos si ble re sults oc cur when a ta ble maps each
source color to a vi su ally equiv a lent CMY printer color.
Such a ta ble must convert all pos si ble printer col ors.
Also, the con ver sions must be fine-tuned to produce
optimum re sults. How ever, for RGB data, a sim ple
con ver sion can oc cur via the fol low ing:

Y = 255 - B

M = 255 - G

C = 255 - R.

Color data al ways en ters a color im age buffer, ei ther as
Yel low, Ma genta, or Cyan. This is also true for K
rib bon, which im ages with black dye. The com mand
des ig nates the buffer dif fer ently ac cord ing to the Buffer
Spec i fi ca tion Pa ram e ter in the com mand. Note that the
spec i fi ca tion for Dye Sub li ma tion only ap plies to im ages
pro duced us ing a Dye Sub li ma tion Black Rib bon. All
data as so ci ated with these com mands rep re sent im ag ing
con sist ing of five-bits-per-dot.

Whether down loading data for a par tial im age (GS
com mand) or for a com plete card im age (PS com mand)
the data must match the as so ci ated card area. For par tial
im ages (some times called lo gos be cause of a typ i cal
ap pli ca tion) the GS Com mand Pa ram e ters spec ify the
area im aged. This as sures proper line breaks. Any ei ther
over- or un der-flow pro duces an er ror. For proper
ap pear ance, color im ages should not over print other
card print ing.

dye

O

1-15

Mono chrome Data
Considerations

P-Series Printers al ways down load mono chrome data
into a Mono chrome Im age Buffer. In print ers with out
Laminators, mono chrome data com mands pref aced with
a “v” des ig nate the Var nish Buffer. Com mands with out
the “v” pref ace des ig nate the buffer used for resin
print ing. If only one Mono chrome Im age Buffer ex ists, the
com mand des ig nates the buffer dif fer ently de pend ing on
the as so ci ated data.

How ever, most color im ag ing does not need a
pre-established Var nish Buffer to ap ply the var nish
coat ing. If no Var nish Buffer is down loaded, the printer
de faults to the Resin Buffer for the ap pli ca tion of var nish.
This works for three rea sons. First, color rib bons have
resin black fol lowed by var nish pan els, both lim ited to
mono chrome data. Sec ond, the pri mary use of var nish is
to pro tect the dye sub li ma tion im ag ing from ul tra vi o let
ra di a tion. Third, be cause resin may need no var nish
pro tec tion, an in verted-resin bit-map can ap ply var nish.
The IV com mand has a pa ram e ter set ting to pro duce an
in verted data print. There fore, when suit able, leave the
Resin Buffer un changed af ter print ing resin. Then, is sue
an IV com mand to print the var nish.

Note that full-coverage var nish, as re quired for ul tra vi o let
pro tec tion us ing dye-sublimation black rib bons, re quires
only a buffer clear com mand (F) fol lowed by the in verted
print com mand (IV).

A wa ter mark sim u la tion can re sult by, in ef fect, punch ing
holes in the var nish im age. Sim i larly, suit able holes in the
var nish ap pli ca tion are nec es sary to pre vent cov er age
over Mag netic Stripes or Smart Card Con tacts. How ever,
this con cern can be avoided by lim it ing im ages re quir ing
var nish to the card sides with out con tacts or stripes.

A ho lo gram trans fer from an as so ci ated rib bon oc curs by
print ing a Var nish Buffer that im ages the area of the
rib bon con tain ing the ho lo gram. Both of these im ages
re quire data pre vi ously down loaded into the Var nish
Buffer.

1-16

Mono chrome graphic ob jects can down load into
ei ther a Resin or Var nish Buffer. As with the pre ced ing,
a “v” pref ace des ig nates a buffer that prints with the
“IV” Com mand, and com mands with out the “v” pref ace
des ig nate a buffer that prints with the “I” Com mand.
Com mands ex ist for down loads of the fol low ing graphic
ob jects:

P/vP Write Dot

L/vL Write Line

C/vC Write Box

D/vD Write Di ag o nal Line

T/vT Write Text

B/vB Write Bar-Code

The fol low ing Graphic Com mands have Ro ta tional
Pa ram e ters (clock wise):

D/vD (Di ag o nal Line) 0, 90, or 180°
Cen ter of Ro ta tion lower-left

T/vT (Text) 90° In cre ments (0~270)
Cen ter of Ro ta tion lower-left or ob ject cen ter

B/vB (Bar Code) 90° In cre ments (0~270)
Cen ter of Ro ta tion lower-left or ob ject cen ter

Mono chrome bit-maps re quire en try of two
com mands—first an initializing com mand (G) and then
an as so ci ated data com mand. The “G” Com mand
spec i fies im age place ments as so ci ated with the fol low ing
com mands:

O/vO Down load Sin gle Line

Z/vZ Down load Mul ti ple Lines

Fig ure 1-5 shows the re la tion ship be tween data sent by
“O” or “Z” com mands and an area pre vi ously
es tab lished by a “G” com mand. The “G” com mand can
also de fine data as sin gle bits (i.e., im age dots).

With dots se lected as the Data Mode in the G
Com mand, data sent to the printer must, nev er the less,
fin ish on an even byte bound ary. When nec es sary, fill in
zero bits to bytes that do not reach the bound ary
spec i fied in the G Com mand.

Data is han dled in bytes dec i mal (0~255) or
hex a dec i mal (00~FF) by the printer.

1-17

Bar Codes Bar Codes vary in ca pac ity, size, char ac ter sets, and

den sity. Sev eral in dus tries have adopted spe cific cod ing
and bar code for mats. A se lected Bar Code must match a
code sup ported by the scan ning equip ment.

All the Bar Codes of fered by the card print ers have the
data char ac ters, 2 quiet zones, and Start and Stop
Char ac ters. The Bar Codes can in clude Text as part of
the Printed Bar Code. Some of the Bar Codes in clude a
printer-generated Check Digit (or Data Check Sum)
Char ac ter au to mat i cally or as an op tion.

A com mand er ror con di tion oc curs when Im age Data
ex tends be yond the ad dress able range of the Im age Buffer.
The Bar Code and Text Fields must re main within the ad ­dress able area of the Im age Buffer. Each of the Bar Codes,
in the Com mand B and Ap pen dix-A De scrip tions have a
for mula to de ter mine a Bar Code Length.

Se lecting a larger Bar Code Width Mul ti plier and a higher
ra tio of the nar row to wide bars (and spaces, where ap pli ca ­ble) im proves the gen eral read abil ity of a Bar Code. Also,
wider bars and spaces in crease the depth of field for im ­proved per for mance with Moving-Beam La sers and other
non-contact scan ning de vices.

1-18

Control

Commands

The card print ers can per form a va ri ety of print, card,
rib bon, head move ment, and other con trol com mand
op er a tions.

Print Controls

Card Movement

In ten sity—Ad justs the amount of heat used to trans fer
Max i mum In ten sity Color or Mono chrome Dots.

Con trast (Color Only)—Ad justs the min i mum
amount of heat used to print dots at the low est color
set ting.

Im age Po si tioning—Lo cates the print able im age on
the card.

Head—Raises the Print Head for card moves and
low ers the head to print. These com mands are nested
within Print Com mands and typ i cally only sup port
test ing.

Print Test Cards—Ini ti ates a print se quence us ing
printer-resident data.

Print Ready Po si tion—The card moves to a po si tion
just prior to the Card Edge Sen sor.

Exit Card—The printer sends the card to the Out put
Hop per. For print ers with mul ti ple sta tions, cards exit to
the next sta tion.

Du plex—Flips cards us ing the Card-Flip Sta tion,
ini ti ated by the MF com mand.

Ready Smart Card—Po si tions a Smart Card un der the
Smart Card Docking Sta tion, where Smart Card Chip
Con tacts make con tact and be come avail able at a
rear-mounted printer con nec tor.

En code Ready po si tion—The card moves to a
po si tion just prior to the Read Write Head of the
Mag netic En coding Sta tion.

Re ject Card—Sends a card to the Re jected Card Box

Ribbon

Re set Rib bon—Ad vances rib bon to pre pare for the
first im ag ing pass (for color, Yel low) or cy cles a
con tin u ous color Mono chrome Rib bon.

Se lect Panel—Re sets, then ad vances rib bon to a
com mand-specified panel.

1-19

Card Handling

Process

The fol low ing out lines a rec om mended card han dling
se quence:

1. Smart Card Pro gram ming - Op tion

2. Mag net i cally En code Card - Op tion

3. Print Card
For color, print:

Yel low

Ma genta

Cyan

Black

Clear Var nish

4. Du plex - Flip Card - Op tion

5. Print Card Back side - Op tion
For color, print:

Yel low

Ma genta

Cyan

Black

Clear Var nish

Ho lo gram Lam i na tion

6. Eject Card

Never im age or lam i nate over mag netic stripes or Smart
Card Con tacts. En coding and/or Smart Card Pro gramming
Er rors can result. Those with lamination capabilities can
order patches that leave these ar eas un cov ered.

Command Linking The “M” and “m” Com mands serve as Com mand

Linking Op er a tors. A string of linked com mands may
ex e cute one or mul ti ple times. The “[” char ac ter serves as
the de lim iter for Linked Com mands in the as so ci ated
syn tax.

For the com plete “M” Com mand Syn tax, and an
ex am ple, see M/m in the Com mand Ref er ence.

1-20