User's Manual

XPS Card Printer Installation and User Guide 158
How to Use Print Blocking Escapes
The XPS Card Printer Driver provides two methods to prevent printing and topcoat on specific
areas of the card. See
Printing and Non-Printing Areas for more information.
By default, the entire side of the card is printed. If your cards include a magnetic stripe, a smart
card chip, or other area, do not print or apply topcoat to the area. You might have other areas,
such as a signature panel or hologram, to prevent printing and topcoat.
For magnetic stripe and smart card areas, see
How to Set the Print Area. For custom areas which
you define, use this topic.
The XPS Card Printer Driver recognizes escape statements to define print areas. Escape
statements are specific sequences of characters that mark data with a special purpose. Areas
defined using escapes override driver settings, unless no area is defined. The driver provides the
following types of escape statements:
• Block print
• Add topcoat
• Remove topcoat
About Printing Areas
Using driver settings, you can define one non-printing area per side of the card. If the card has
more than one area on a side, define both non-printing areas using escapes. An escape
statement applies to the side of the card where in appears in the document.
The syntax or structure of each escape statement is ~XX%n1n2n3n4?
• ~ is the beginning of the statement
• XX represents the type of action –Block
Print, Add Topcoat, or Remove Topcoat.
• n1 is the distance from the top of the
card to the start of the area
• n2 is the distance from the left edge of
the card to the start the area
• n3 is with width of the area
• n4 is the height of the area
Each area is a square or rectangular shape
The card in this example shows the dimensions
of a three-track magnetic stripe area.
An escape statement can take the place of
settings made in Preferences, by omitting the
dimension values. For example. ~PB%? prevents
print blocking on a card.
The escape statement can specify more than one area of the same type by placing a semicolon
(;) character between the sets of values.