Datasheet

80 Zebra P630i & P640i Card Printer Service Manual 980006-001 Rev. A
Installation and Setup
Changing the Printing Preferences
2.8.3 K (Black) Panel Tab
When the Card Setup screen is set for YMC and K on the same side of a card, a process called
Black Extraction is enabled. The K (Black) Panel screen displays available options for
Black Extraction.
To access the K (Black) Panel screen, select Start > Printers and Faxes. Right click on the
Zebra P630i or Zebra P640i printer listing. Select Printing Preferences > K (Black) Panel.
Black Extraction
Black extraction has to do with the way the printer driver handles the K (black) panel. The
term applies only to the surfaces of the card on which both YMC (color) and K (black) are to
be printed.
Equal amounts of Y, M, and C dyes, at maximum intensity, deliver a near-black image, but one
that is not machine readable. A bar code printed from YMC will be visible to the eye, but will
not be detectable by most bar code readers.
The remedy for this is to extract the black; which means printing the same bar code, using the
K panel, on top of the YMC bar code. You can also choose to print only in K, omitting YMC
from that region. The K panel is not a dye. It is more of a paint containing carbon black, which
is highly visible to infrared-type readers.