FARGO electronic L000286 - Manual (Page 162)

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CardJet 410 Card Printer/Encoder and Persona CardJet C7 Printer User Guide (Rev. 6.1) 4-63
Sending the Track Information
Magnetic track data is sent in the form of text strings from the application software to the
Printer Driver. Specific characters are added to the magnetic data (to be encoded) in order
for the Printer Driver to differentiate between magnetic track data and the rest of the printable
objects. (Note: These specify the data and the tracks to encode and indicate the Start and
Stop Sentinels and the Field Separators. The Start Sentinels are the
“
%
”
and the
“
;
”
. The End
Sentinel is the
“
?
”
) See the previous page.

Automatic: In specific cases, these specific characters are automatically added to the
string of track data by ID software applications.

Manual: In most cases, the Operator must manually add these characters to the string
of magnetic track data. (Note: If these characters are not added to the track data, the
text intended for the magnetic track will appear as printed text on the card.)
To avoid this, track information is entered as described below.
Step Procedure
1 When entering track data, the "~" (tilde) character is entered first, followed by the
track number (1, 2 or 3) on which the data should encode. This is followed by the
data to be encoded.

Start Sentinel and End Sentinel: The first character of this data string is
the track's specific Start Sentinel (SS) and the last character is the specific
End Sentinel (ES). (Note: The characters or data in between the SS and ES
can include all of the valid characters specific to each track.)

Maximum Character Capacity: The number of these characters, however,
is limited by each track's maximum character capacity.

Field Separator: When segmenting track data, the appropriate Field
Separator (FS) is used. (Note: See the table on the next page, which
displays the SS, ES, FS and the valid characters defined for each track.)