User`s guide

5-8 Troubleshooting

User’s Guide for Magna™ Platinum Series™ Printers

Print a magnetic stripe test card

The printer must be connected to the PC with the driver installed, and both printer

and PC must be running.

1 Open the Printer Toolbox if needed. “Opening and using the Printer Toolbox” on

page 3-11.

2 Make sure that magnetic stripe cards are loaded in the card cartridge. (See

“Loading cards” on page 2-3 for information on loading cards.)

3 Click once on the Print Mag Stripe Card button in the Printer Toolbox. The printer

driver formats card data for the type of module installed, as follows:

– Three-track: IAT formatted data (IATA data on track 1, ABA data on track 2,

and TTS data on track 3). See “Magnetic stripe encoding” on page D-1 for

more magnetic stripe information.

– NTT track: NTT formatted data on the track.

4 Remove the card from the card output stacker.

5 Test the card by passing it through a card reader that will display the data encoded

on the card. The encoded data should match the data printed on the test card.

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Problems with card appearance

Problems with card appearance can be the result of the following:

• Image capture tools, such as the camera

• Card creation application, which displays the image

• Limitations in technology, such as differences between how an image looks on the

monitor and how it looks after it is printed

• Printer maintenance or PC settings

Magna Platinum Series printers include Datacard’s Advanced Imaging

Technology™ (AIT). Cards printed with Advanced Imaging Technology have a

different appearance than cards printed with earlier Magna printers, including

those with Tru Image™.