Print room guide

For whoever runs the card printer. This covers the daily routine, the ZXP7 itself, consumables, and what to do when a card does not come out right.

Your screen

Production in the sidebar. It shows, in one place:

• Which printers are online, and what each is doing
• The queue: what is printing, what is next, what failed
• Ribbon and card stock levels
• Orders waiting to be released

The daily routine

Start of day

1. Turn the printer on and check the portal shows it online. If it does not, the agent PC is off or the agent is not running — see print agent setup.
2. Check the ribbon and card levels on the production screen.
3. Look at Orders waiting. Rush and emergency orders are listed first.

Releasing a run

A run is a batch you send to one printer as a unit.

1. Select the orders you want to produce.
2. Check the warnings — the portal tells you before you start if the ribbon will not last the run.
3. Print the proof sheet. Eight cards a page with names and IDs.
4. Check the proof. This is the step that saves cards. Look for the wrong photo on the wrong person, clipped surnames, and anything that looks off.
5. Release the run. The agent picks up the cards one at a time.

Checking a proof sheet takes two minutes and costs nothing. Catching the same mistake after printing costs a card, a ribbon panel, and the trip back to whoever ordered it.

During a run

The queue updates live. Each card moves queued → claimed → printing → printed.

If a card fails, the queue says why and what to do — “Refill the input hopper, then retry the run”, not “error 0x8007”.

End of day

• Note the ribbon count. The portal tracks it, but a glance catches a mis-count.
• Check whether head cleaning is due (every ~1000 cards; the portal warns you).
• Make sure nothing is stuck in failed without a decision.

Consumables

Production → Consumables tracks what you have.

Ribbons

The portal decrements the ribbon count as cards print, and knows a double-sided card on a YMCKO ribbon costs two images while on YMCKOK it costs one.

When you fit a new ribbon, record it: Consumables → the ribbon → Restock. Enter the images on the box. If the count has drifted, correct it here.

You are emailed when a ribbon drops below 50 images, once a day rather than once an hour.

Card stock

Recorded the same way. Set a reorder threshold that matches your lead time — if your supplier takes a fortnight, do not set it to 50.

Cleaning

The ZXP7 wants a cleaning card roughly every 1000 cards. The portal counts cards since the last clean and tells you when it is due.

Cleaning takes two minutes and prevents the streaks and dropouts that otherwise get blamed on the ribbon.

When a card comes out wrong

Mark it spoiled

Mark spoiled on the job. This records that a card and its ribbon panels were consumed even though nothing usable came out — which is what makes your card costs add up at the end of the month.

Then request a reprint from the order.

Common problems

What you see	Cause	Fix
Streaks along the card	Dirty print head	Run a cleaning card
Washed-out colour	Ribbon nearly finished, or wrong ribbon type	Fit a new ribbon; check the type matches the template
Skin tones orange or blue	Driver colour correction is on	Turn it off — artwork is already colour-managed
Image scaled or off-centre	Driver is scaling to fit	Set card size to CR-80, disable fit-to-page
Only the front prints	Driver set single-sided, or single-pass ribbon	Enable double-sided; use YMCKOK
Card jams repeatedly	Card stock out of spec, or dirty rollers	Check thickness (0.25–1.27 mm); clean the rollers
Nothing prints, no error	Agent not running	idportal-agent status on the print PC
Mag stripe does not read	Wrong coercivity	HiCo stock needs HiCo settings — check the card stock matches

Printer error codes

The portal translates the driver’s message into something actionable. If you see a raw code on the printer’s own display, check it against Zebra’s manual — but the portal’s message is what tells you what the job needs.

Print agents

Production → Print agents lists the machines that drive printers.

A green agent has checked in within the last three minutes. If one goes red, you and the administrators are emailed, and queued cards simply wait — nothing is lost.

To add a printer at a new site: Add agent, copy the enrolment token, and follow print agent setup on that PC.

Deactivate an agent when you decommission a PC. It stops claiming work immediately.

Printing without the agent

You do not have to use the agent. Every order can produce a print bundle — a ZIP containing:

  index.csv       one row per card, with paths to that card's artwork
  cards/          finished artwork, PNG, 300 dpi, sRGB, bleed included
  photos/         cropped ID photos, in case you compose in CardStudio
  manifest.json   machine-readable summary
  README.txt      step-by-step CardStudio instructions

The artwork is already composed — you do not need to lay out fields in CardStudio unless you want to. The README in the bundle walks through connecting index.csv as a database and binding the image fields.

This is the right path for a bureau doing overflow work, a site before the agent is installed, or a printer the agent cannot reach.

Card lifecycle

Once an order is marked printed, each card is registered with:

• A serial number, unique within your organisation
• A verification code, which is what the QR code on the back encodes
• A status: active, lost, stolen, damaged, expired or revoked

Anyone can check a card at /verify/<code> — scanning the QR opens it. The page shows only whether the card is valid, never the holder’s personal details.

Reporting a card lost or stolen stops it verifying immediately. This is the control that matters if cards open doors.