How do I use my Magicard printer?

We sometimes get enquiries from people who find themselves having to use a printer they are unfamiliar with.

• Maybe somebody left the business and lucky old you inherited the task of printing ID badges?
• Or, a poor forgotten old printer has been discovered and you want to get it up and running?
• Maybe it’s just been a while?

Either way, you have a printer in front of you and no idea what to do next…

Don’t worry – this page is for you!

We wrote this page to help you get the printer setup and tested and at the end we discuss how to actually print to it from a computer.

From our experience this type of situation is mostly for direct to card printers, rather than retransfer… so Pronto, Enduro’s, Rio Pro’s…
If you are sat in front of a Prima 4, Prima 8 or an Ultima then this page will still help but those printers can be more technical to setup so also please see the info and user guides linked to from start.magicard.com.

Please follow each link as you work through the steps below – they are all important and will save you from wasted time and frustration.

If you are completely new to the printer and it’s technology then these articles may be of interest:

https://magicard.com/knowledge-centre/what-is-dye-sublimation-printing/

https://magicard.com/knowledge-centre/direct-card-vs-retransfer-technology/

Let’s start with the printer on its own

Ensure the Cleaning Roller is fitted

See this page for Pronto Cleaning Roller
And here for Rio Pro and Enduro, Magicard600 & Magicard300

It must have it’s original power supply

Very important!  Please see the page linked and double check…

Power it on once you confirmed you have the right one…

Cleaning

For setup and cleaning the printer (‘before’ you print – to avoid any potential problems) please see our YouTube Channel and find the playlist and cleaning video for your specific printer model.  Follow the process shown.  Cleaning the printer is extremely important and we advise not skipping this step!  During the cleaning video/s you will notice the cleaning roller and how they are installed, the cleaning cards to use and how to actually fit the dye film and cards.

Dye Film to print with and Cards to print onto.

Look like this…

Fit them as shown in your specific printer model’s videos above, or as shown in the quick start guides here.

See a list of consumables for your specific printer here: Magicard ID printer (select your printer then choose ‘consumables’) and here if yours is of certain vintage: Magicard consumables

Test Print (just from the printer itself)

You should now be ready to print the built in test card…

For all printers (bar Pronto) you can press Menu and scroll until you see Test Card – select it and the printer will print it’s internal test card.
For Pronto you can quickly press the front button twice in very quick succession to print the test card.
*don’t leave a card in the front slot ‘ready’ beforehand!  Wait until the button glows yellow, then feed it.

If your on an older Rio 2 / Rio 2e printer there is a little black button on the back to press for the test card.

Hopefully now you have a cleaned and working printer with a test card that printed out OK. Great work!

Next, install the latest Printer Driver

You will need the latest printer driver installed on your computer which you can download via the page below.  That’s the latest Windows driver page but it contains links to the Mac driver, and linux…  and more.     We have no crystal ball while writing this so you’ll have to go solo for this part…

⚠️ The rest of these steps will be referring to a Windows PC.

If you are on a Mac the driver is here.  See also the Enable CUPS Web Interface: Mac OSX. (The ‘Test Print’ MS Word Templates mentioned later on should also open fine in ‘Pages’ on the Mac)

Magicard Windows Printer Driver

Follow the usual driver installation process until installation is complete…

Connect the printer to your computer.

Connect to USB

You can now connect to your computer and a USB cable will be the easiest way to connect.  (no longer than 1.8m length)
It will be same one as any other office printers so steal borrow it from someone else if you don’t have it.

⚠️ Best to connect with the printer powered off.  Connect the USB cable.  Then power the printer back on…

Give it time to install. Be patient.  Your PC will be busy in the background.  Make a tea.

Check the printer connection status

Go to control panel > devices and printers.
Click your windows icon, start typing “control…..” to see the devices and printers option like this:

The printers icon should appear… it will look something like below though your printer maybe a different model:

• The ‘greyed out’ icons denote that they are not connected (the middle pair in the screenshot above).
• The ‘Solid’ coloured icons should be ‘connected’ (the left and right ones above).

Check your Printer Status

by right clicking on the icon and choosing > Printing Preferences

Then click on Printer Status (down at the bottom right hand side – highlight blue above) which hopefully opens up to show a green banner saying “printer connected”

Please carry on below > Windows Test page.

Not a red one..

If it is Red, please:

1. Power the printer off.
2. Fully restart your PC.
3. Give your PC time to finish fully booting back up again and then power the printer back on…  maybe have another cuppa.
   A delay here could be due to windows updates in the background, hence the 2nd cup of tea.

Still red?  Please click get help to see how to get in touch with us for help, we can still help.

Windows Test Page

You can also now try the windows test page. From the right click on the icon menu this time choose Printer Properties, then down on the bottom right click ‘Print Test Page’…

This is very exciting, well we think so anyway.

If it works then you have done a great job and your printer is setup perfectly! 🎉    – Carry on below…

Any problems, please click here to see how to get in touch with us for help.

Latest Printer Firmware

At this point it would be worth updating your printer with the latest firmware version, unless it already did so automatically…
(Printer registration will help to get the firmware via the automatic prompt and keep it up to date)

From the support homepage select your printer model, then search ‘Firmware’.

Follow the instructions to install.  It doesn’t take long.

You will likely still be wondering where you ‘really’ print from…

Hold your horses just a bit longer…  For getting you setup quickly and for purposes of testing you can actually print from any windows application. The only difference to your normal office printer is that Magicard printers have a much smaller page size (CR80 Credit Card Size).   Conveniently, we have some very basic example Microsoft Word templates that you can download from the link below.

https://techs.magicard.com/templates

That will download a zip file.  Inside are a few examples, maybe start with general_examples > cr80_single_sided.docx.
Just replace our contents for your own within the page layout.

You can add any design elements needed within the template dimensions too like photo, text, shapes etc…  Then print to your Magicard printer.

There’s further templates linked to from here:  https://magicard.com/id-software/

So do I need a badging application?

You might do. You probably do actually.  But you might not…  🧐

Using the word templates will be Very time consuming if you have lots of different badges to print!  Where will you store them all?  If you just need a few cards a year then the template might do the job…  But any more and this is where a proper badging application can really help!  Which badging application is best for you?  It really depends on your requirements (number of cards you will be printing, etc.).  Each of our Partners tend to have their own applications which they either sell or bundle with the printers.  They are likely to have even created their own application and they may have different versions for different purposes with different price points.

As the printer manufacturer (Magicard Ltd) we don’t actually supply card printing software ‘bundled-with-every-printer’ and we also only ship printers via our official partner channel, not directly to end users.

Speak to the original vendor of your printer as they will be best placed to advise based on your specific printing needs.

Useful Resources:

• Quick Start and Setup Guides
• What is Dye Sublimation Printing
• How to Design an ID card
• Magicard Main Website
  • Magicard Knowledge Centre
  • Magicard News

Hopefully the above information is helpful to get you up and running with the equipment you find yourself faced with!

If you still need some assistance don’t worry,  that’s what we are here for… Please see the article on how to contact us.