We have listed some common definitions and terminology used in the plastic card manufacturing industry. These are terms that graphic designers and vendors may come across in their everyday job.

Access Control Card
Plastic card used to gain access to premises, usually associated with magnetic stripe and proximity cards.

AI
(Adobe Illustrator) - Adobe Illustrator is an illustration tool for creating and editing artwork, document layout and other vector-based drawings. It can be resized with no loss of resolution. This is a preffered format for all logo work.

Bar Code
An array of machine-readable rectangular bars and spaces arranged in a specific way defined in international standards to represent letters, numbers, and other human-readable symbols.

Bar Code Reader or Scanner
The device used to read a barcode.

Bitmap
Is literally a map of all the bits (also referred to as dots or pixels) in an image editing or paint program file. Each individual pixel is assigned a specific location. Examples of this are BMP, TIFF, PCX, JPG. A resolution of 400-600 dpi is minimum. This is not a good format for logo work.

Black and White
A visual medium, as in photography or printmaking, employing only black and white or black, white, and values of gray. We often refer to our B&W glass products when we use this term.

Blank Cards
Cards with no printing. Used to print 4 color cards.

Bleeds
Artwork that extends beyond the actual size of the card.

BMP
(Bitmap) – a 24-bit Windows graphics file format. This is a very common format created in low end paint programs. This can be used for photographic work or colorscenics that are pictures. A resolution of 400-600 dpi is minimum. This is not a good format for logo work.

Camera Ready Art
Printable film or art files to facilitate printing.

CMYK
Stands for the four primary colors of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. It refers to taking an image and breaking it into these colors visually and then put them into layers to be assembled into the final product.

Combo Card
One or two key tags attached to a CR80 card.

Coercivity
A measure of the strength of a magnetic field. Fields are expressed as low or high by the terms LoCo and HiCo.

CR80 Card
Standard credit card size (3.375" x 2.125" x .030).

Degaussing
Magnetic stripe data erasure process.

Digital Imaging
Scanning or otherwise capturing images that may be edited, filed, displayed or printed on a plastic card.

Digitizing
Conversion of non-textual data to digital form.

Dye Sublimation
An imaging method for transferring controlled quantities of printer ribbon dye onto a plastic card.

Electronic Art
Graphics in a digital format to work with computer design and imaging applications.

Embed
Is a command or process by which a design element from one program is placed into an item in another program. It sometimes refers to a font being embedded into an art file. This does not work that well for us and we prefer to have the customer convert all fonts into outlines and flatten all tranparencies prior to sending a file.

Embossing
Raised letters or numbers tipped in black, silver or gold foil.

Encode Head
A device used to encode data onto the magnetic stripe.

Encoding
The process of electronically "writing" information on magnetic stripes.

Encryption
Transferring information based on a key to render it intelligible to unauthorized persons.

End Sentinel
A designated character in an encoding character set which is used to identify the end of a data field, and cannot be used for data.

EPS
(Encapsulated PostScript) – It is a vector based format that is used primarily for exporting graphics into documents and layouts. As a PostScript file, it is resolution-independent, which means that it will output at the resolution of the printer. This is a vector based file and can be used to make all of our products. There is also a Photoshop EPS that is a raster based file and can be used in B&W or Color photo work.

Field Separator
A designated character in an encoding character set which is used to separate data fields, and cannot be used for data.

Film
Generally refers to any photosensitive material exposed in a conventional camera or film recorder that produces a realistic image of a subject.

Film Scanner
Is an input device specifically designed to scan or "read" an image from film negatives and/or slides. It then digitizes the picture into a bitmap format and sends it to the computer, where it may be edited, enhanced, output, saved, etc. We have one in the art department and can eccept slides from the customer.

Font
Is the name given to a family or collection of typefaces of a similar design. We have over 20,000 fonts available in the art department. It can be time consuming to match a font and we prefer that the customer converts all fonts into outlines prior to sending us a file.

Four-Color Process
Also called, full color; refers to the use of the process colors of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black on a printing press. When these four fundamental printer's inks are combined, they create all the other colors possible from that kind of printing press.

Fulfillment
The process by which a personalized card is matched and attached to a letter, inserted into an envelope (sometimes with additional marketing materials), metered and delivered to the post office.

GIF
(Graphics Interchange Format) – a popular format for color images displayed on and downloaded from on-line services and the Internet. These usually work poorly since they are often 72 DPI. Other formats should be asked for.

Gift Card
Standard or custom size CR80 card. Stored value is placed on the card through magnetic striping or bar coding.

Grayscale
Is a picture that consists of up to 256 or 1,024 levels of gray, ranging from white to black. A black and white photograph is a grayscale picture.

Halftone
A halftone image is made up of a series of dots rather than a continuous tone. These dots can be different sizes, different colors, and sometimes even different shapes.

Halftone Screens
A screen used in traditional publishing that a continuous-tone image is photographed. The term describes the dot sizes (the digital halftones are not photographed through a screen in actuality). One can create special effects using special screens. The smaller the dots, the less grainy an image appears.

High Coercivity
Usually refers to 2750 Oe magnetic stripe. Manufactured to conform to ISO 7811/6.

Hologram
A unique photographic printing that provides a three-dimensional effect on a flat surface. Holograms cannot be easily copied and are used for security and aesthetic purposes on cards.

Hue
Describes a color, i.e., a red apple, green grass, a yellow bus, according to its position in the spectrum of colors.

Human Readable
Numbers and or letters imaged below or above the barcode that represent the data encoded in the bar code.

I.D. Card
Card which identifies both the bearer and the issuer.

Italic
Is a style of typeface that slants forward. It is usually used to emphasis a word or phrase, though italicizing some fonts can make them look more like handwriting.

Issuer
An individual or organization that issues identification cards to individual or corporate cardholders.

Jaggies
Is a popular description for the staircase-like appearance of pixels along an angular or curved edge of an object or an area in an image or a text-based character. We can clean these up in the art department by manually redrawing the art. Hourly charges will apply.

.jpeg / .jpg
(Joint Photographic Experts Group) – a popular, industry standard file format that compresses a photographic image to a fraction of its original size. The compressed format omits some information and limits our ability to manipulate the file in the art department. It can be used for photographic images at higher resolutions like 400-600 dpi. B&W or Colorscenic photographic pictures.

Key Card
Plastic card used to gain access to premises, usually associated with magnetic stripe and proximity cards.

Lamination
The process of combining lamination material and core material using time, heat and pressure.

Laser Printer
Widely used technology that employs a laser beam to rapidly "paint" a digital image on a photosensitive surface. Those areas where the laser light strikes the drum become electrically charged and, like a magnet, attract and pick up a fine iron powder, called toner.

Line Art
Shows pictures or illustrations as black and white, with no gray or other colors.

Lithography or Offset Printing
Most common process for plastic card printing based on the concept that oil and water are not compatible. The ink represents oil, the alkaline fountain solution represents water. These two components must interact during the printing process, allowing the ink to adhere to the image area of a printing plate while the fountain solution repels the ink from the non-image area.

Loyalty Card
Standard (CR80) frequent user card offering promotional benefits and accounting for capabilities for marketing purposes.

Low Coercivity
Usually refers to 300 Oe magnetic stripe. Manufactured to conform to ISO 7811/2.

MAC
The common terminology referring to Apple Macintosh computers.

Machine Readable
A code or characters that can be read by machines.

Magnetic Stripe
Magnetic material, applied as a strip in the surface of a card, used to encode cardholder information.

Magnetic Stripe Reader
The electromechanical device used to extract data from a previously encoded magnetic stripe.

Membership Card
Usually a club member card for ID or promotional purpose.

Negative
A command or filter that reverses the shadows and highlights, as well as colors, to their complements. The result looks like a film negative.

Non Camera Ready
These situations may require the art to be redrawn to become line art. Our Art Depaartment can take care of this if needed. Hourly charges will apply.

• Clean Fax
• Ready Slick
• Files with the following extensions: .gif, .tiff/.tif, .doc, .bmp, .jpg, and PhotoShop® eps.

Oblique
A typographical term that describes type that is angled or slanted backward. It is the opposite of italics.

Oerested (Oe)
The unit of magnetic coercive force used to define difficulty of erasure of magnetic material.

Off-Line
A transaction via paper or reader not connected to a central system.

On-Line
A transaction on a terminal permanently connected to a network that is on-line to the card account.

Optical Card
A card with information recorded on an optical memory stripe, similar to compact discs.

Other Secure Card
Usually Retail, Oil/Gas, Telecom, Transit, Payroll or Expense.

Outline
Is a command in image editing programs that draws a line or lines around the perimeter of a selection or area of an image. Adobe illustrator (AI) is a good example of this.

Overhead
The transparent sheet of acetate or plastic that may be fed into a desktop printer to create sheets that may be projected onto large screens via an overhead projector. We can use these and scan them. It would be considered low quality art.

Overlay Varnish
A thin transparent layer applied to cards to resist scratching and fading from exposure to UV radiation.

Paste
Is the command that places whatever is on the clipboard into the current image, document, page, etc. It gets into the clipboard by using either the cut or the copy command on it in its original position, document, image, etc.

Personalization
Printing encoding and programming a card with data specific to an individual cardholder.

Phone Card
A stored value card that allows the user to access pre-paid long distance. The long distance is generally accessed via a PIN number (stored value), typically covered by a scratch-off panel for security.

PhotoPAINT
Corel Corporation's image editing program, which is often sold as part of a graphics suite that also includes the best-selling CorelDRAW illustration program. We won't accept this file type unless it is a print-ready .pdf saved to our art layout specs.

PIN #
Personal Identification Number

Pixel
Stands for picture element, is the smaller point or dot of information in a raster image. (PSD, TIFF, PCX, JPG )

PKZip
A shareware program (that is it is freely distributed, and users are expected to pay a fee to the developer), which compresses files (including images) and allows them to span several floppy disks. We can accept a file that is zipped (Pkzip) and we will open it with a conversion program.

PMS
(Pantone Matching System) – Is the combination software, color palettes and printed swatch books that are used in preparing images for prepress. It attempts to coordinate the computer-displayed colors with the Pantone inks that will be used for the final print run, to maintain a consistency of color. Most logo work uses this color reference system to describe the colors they want.

Point
Is a typesetting unit of measure (roughly equivalent to 1/72 of an inch) that is used to measure characters and spaces on a line of a printed page, as well as the spaces (leading) between lines.

POS
Point of Sale referring to the place at which goods are retailed, returns are processed and credit cards are verified.

Proof
A hard copy or print that shows how a picture or layout will look when it is sent to its final output.

Prepaid Card
A card paid for at Point of Sale, permitting the holder to buy goods or services up to the prepaid value.

PSD
(PhotoShop) – is Adobe's image editing program. 300-600 DPI is the minimum resolution that we would want to recieve.

PVC
Polyvinyl Chloride. The primary material used for typical plastic cards.

Raster
Is an image that is made up of pixels rather than defined by mathematical formula. (PSD, TIFF, PCX, JPG)

Read Head
A device used to read data encoded on the magnetic stripe.

Resolution
Measures data density in a picture, or the ability of a device to capture, display, or output that data. We prefer files coming in at 300-600 dpi resolution.

RGB
Is short for red, green, blue, which are the primary colors of one of the most important color models in digital imaging. RGB is a subtractive model used to describe and create transmitted colors, such as those that are displayed on a computer monitor. We convert RGB images to CMYK or grayscale since RGB cannot be used in our process.

Saturation
Refers to the degree or density of color in an image. The lower the saturation, the closer to gray the color gets. High saturation color is a vibrant, intense statement that takes more ink to print.

Scanner
A device that captures pages, pictures, slides and other material from the real world, digitizes it and feeds it to the computer. We have several scanners in the art department. All logo work that is scanned becomes rasterized and needs to be redrawn by the art department. That is why AI (vector) files are preferred.

Scratch Off Panels and Labels
Applying a destructible top coating covering printed data to conceal from public viewing.

Secure Cards
Cards with an intrinsic value - e.g. financial, retail, oil/gas, telecom, transit other cards with financial value.

Signature Panel
The area of an I.D. card where the cardholder enters a signature.

Skimming
Copying the magnetic stripe encoding from one card to another.

Start Sentinel
A designated character in an encoding character set that is used to identify the start of a data field.

Substrate
Material upon which a plastic card is printed.

Swipe Reader
A manually operated reader with a long narrow channel (slot) through which the magnetic stripe edge of the card is pushed.

.tif / .tiff
Tagged Image File Format or Tagged Image File) – is a bitmapped or raster file format that is used by image editing and paint programs. It can be accepted for art. It works best in photographic images with a minimum of 300-600 dpi

Thermal Printing
The process of creating an image on a plastic card using a heated print head.

Track
A strip of specified width and location running the length of the magnetic stripe on which data is encoded. ANSI/ISO standards define three track locations for the magnetic stripe on credit/financial cards, identified as Track 1, 2 and 3.

Transparency
The quality of a color, brush, layer, object, etc., if what is under it can be see through it.

Typeface
Is a family of characters that have a recognizably related style.

UV Printing
UV printing is used to print on plastic, foil, and specialty substrates. UV light is used to dry specially formulated inks that are printed on non-porous materials. In conventional printing ink dries as it is absorbed into paper. Because plastic is not absorbent, ink must be dried using UV light.

Vector
Is the overall term for any shape, object, scene, or font that is defined mathematically. These elements can be resized with no resolution loss. An example of a vector file would be an Adobe Illustrator file (.ai).

Zip
The process of compressing or shrinking the size of a file.