How to Create a Printable ID Card

Printable is not one standard. A card you print at home on an inkjet, a card run on an office laser printer, and a card produced by a commercial print shop need different preparation — and the fastest way to waste a pack of card stock is to skip that decision until after the artwork is finished.

First decide where it will be printed

• Home inkjet. Fine for a handful of cards. Ink is water-soluble on most papers, so the card must be laminated or it will smudge. Print on the heaviest stock the printer accepts.
• Office laser. Sharper text, toner does not run, and it handles 200 gsm card without complaint. Heat and pressure from the fuser can curl thin stock, so test before a large run.
• Commercial print shop or card printer. Best colour and durability. They will want a PDF with an explicit page size, and they will tell you their bleed requirement — usually 2 to 3 mm.

Getting the artwork right

The physical size of a standard ID card is ID-1: 85.6 × 54 mm — the same as a bank card. Set the document to exactly that, plus bleed if the printer asked for it.

• Resolution. Export at 300 dpi at final size. For an ID-1 card that is about 1011 × 638 px; for a sheet of cards, export the sheet at 300 dpi rather than scaling a small image up.
• Bleed. Any colour that should reach the edge must extend 2 to 3 mm past it. Otherwise a 1 mm trimming error leaves a white sliver down one side.
• Safety margin. Keep text and the photo at least 3 mm inside the trim line.
• Colour. Screens show colour as light and printers show it as ink or toner, so a vivid blue on screen will print duller. Check contrast rather than expecting an exact match.

Laying up a sheet instead of printing one at a time

Printing a single card wastes almost the whole sheet. Put several on one page instead — an A4 sheet holds up to ten ID-1 cards with margins and gaps, arranged two across and five down.

1. Draw a page in the printer’s paper size (A4: 210 × 297 mm).
2. Place card rectangles with a 2 to 3 mm gap between them and a margin at the edge.
3. Add light grey cutting guides — or crop marks outside the trim area — rather than heavy black lines, which look like part of the design if a cut drifts.
4. Keep the order of the cards the same as the order you will hand them out, so you are not hunting through a pile for one person’s card.

Printer settings that matter

• Scale: 100%, actually sized. “Fit to page” or “shrink to fit” silently changes the dimensions, and a card that should be 85.6 mm comes out at 83 mm — which will not fit a standard badge holder or a laminating pouch properly.
• Paper type: card or heavy stock, which adjusts the roller speed and reduces smearing on inkjets.
• Print at highest quality, even though it is slower. This is a few pages, not a book.
• Do a one-sheet test and measure the printed card with a ruler before running the batch.

Cutting

• A guillotine gives straight repeatable cuts; a craft knife and steel rule works if you use a fresh blade and a proper cutting mat.
• Cut from the outside in, and use the cutting guides as a guide — not as an exact line — trimming to the card edge.
• Round the corners with a 3 mm corner punch if the cards will live in a wallet or pocket. Square corners fray and catch within days.
• If cards will hang on a lanyard, punch the hole before laminating if possible, in a corner clear of text and photo. A hole punched through the photo is a hole through someone’s face.

Laminating

• Use a pouch thick enough to protect the print: 125 micron is the minimum for a card handled daily, 250 micron feels like plastic and lasts longer.
• Leave a 2 to 3 mm border of sealed laminate all the way round. If laminate stops short of the edge, moisture gets in and corners lift.
• Let cards cool flat, under a book if they curl, before cutting them out.
• Laminate both sides if only one side is printed — an unprotected paper back is where a card fails first.

When to stop doing it yourself

Printing and laminating works well up to a few dozen cards, and it is the right answer for a small team, a one-off event or membership renewals trickling in. Beyond that, the arithmetic changes: PVC cards from a card printer or a bureau are more durable, look consistent batch to batch, and take a proximity chip. Around the point where you are cutting out your hundredth card and reprinting the ones that smudged, outsourcing becomes the cheaper option in every sense except the invoice.

Checklist before you print

1. Decided on the printer and asked about bleed requirements.
2. Artwork is exactly 85.6 × 54 mm, exported at 300 dpi.
3. Colour extends 2 to 3 mm past the trim line.
4. Text and photo sit at least 3 mm inside it.
5. Several cards laid up per sheet with clear cutting guides.
6. Printer set to 100% scale and heavy stock.
7. One test sheet printed and measured.
8. Laminate covers the whole card with a sealed border.
9. Corners rounded, hole punched clear of the photo.
10. A replacement file kept — you will need to reprint one eventually.

Making the artwork

ID Card Maker on Android exports a finished card as a PNG or a PDF, so the design side is handled on the phone. The printing decisions above are yours: pick the printer, lay the export out on a sheet at 300 dpi, and keep the cutting and laminating tidy. The one step worth repeating is the test sheet — it costs a page and catches most of the mistakes.