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General Questions
Who are you and what do you do?
How can I contact you?
How do I make and order a card?
What can I do if my organization is tax exempt in MA?
What is your typical turn-around time?
Hey! Why was my card order rejected?
Online Card Designer Questions
Can I make a database of Photo ID Badges for my employees on your site?
Is there a limit to how may cards I can save?
Do I need to know a lot about image editing in order to use your Online Card Designer?
Can I completely design my card image in my favorite image editor rather than using your form fields?
What if I need fields that aren't available on the form?
What type of images can I upload into the Card Designer?
Card Questions
What are your cards made of and how are they made?
Do you offer cards with magnetic stripes and do you encode them?
Do you print proximity cards?
Do you print smart cards?
Do you accept card returns?
Bar Code Questions
I know very little about bar codes. Where do I start?
You don't have a barcode symbology that I need on my card. Can you get it?
General Questions
Q. Who are you and what do you do?
A. DistinctID.com is a service owned and operated by DJL Systems,
Inc. DistinctID.com is a service that allows for the
rapid online design, management, and ordering of plastic cards. With our
service, organizations and companies can make ID Cards for photo ID/name
badges, membership cards, loyalty cards, gift cards, and much
more. DistinctID.com gives you the ability to instantly design and
order professionally printed PVC cards with no special software to
download or install. While our competitors charge setup fees, have minimum
order requirements, have complicated artwork specifications, and have lead
times of more than 2 weeks, DistinctID.com lets you design and order full-color
custom cards within minutes.
Q. How can I contact you?
A. In order to effectively track our
correspondence with you, we prefer that you send us your questions or comments
via our Contact Us
form. Your questions and comments are extremely important to us and we make
every effort to reply to your questions as soon as possible. Our contact
information including address, phone, and fax is the bottom of our
Site Use Agreement.
Q. How do I make and order a card?
A. Our goal is to make this as easy as possible:
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Start by selecting a sample from our
samples page. This will load the card into the online card designer.
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Modify the text fields as desired. The
 button
allows you to change the text's color, font, alignment, and position. You
may also change the label for each field.
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Upload and position image files as desired such as your
company logo, a person's photograph, or a person's scanned signature. The
button allows you to select a different image or upload your own image.
The  button allows you to change
the layout and position of the image or set a transparent color for the image.
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When your card is complete, be sure to click on the "Save As"
button on the bottom of the form. If you haven't already created an account or
if you are not yet logged in, you will be asked to login or create a new
account. Creating a new account is quick and easy. After you create your
account or login, you will be prompted for the card name. At this point, you
will also have the option of specifying an ID number or
setting auto-numbering options for your card. Enter your desired card name
and click on the "Save" button.
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When you go to your "My Account/My Cards" page, you'll notice that
each card has an "Add To Cart" link (the green button). If you are ready to
order cards, click on this link for each card you want to order. You will see
the number of items and price increment accordingly in the upper right corner
of your browser next to the shopping cart icon.
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View your cart any time by clicking on the shopping cart icon. When
you are ready to complete your order, click on the "Checkout" button.
Q. What can I do if my organization is tax exempt in MA?
A. You must have an authorized tax exempt
verification number. Provide a valid copy of your tax exempt verification
number certificate to us and we'll flag your account as tax exempt for future
orders. Our fax number is listed at the bottom of our User
Agreement page. All orders shipped outside of Massachusetts are tax
free.
Q. What is your typical turn-around time?
A. One of our primary design goals for our system was to be able to
support high numbers of smaller card orders while also servicing clients
with larger card orders. Although a number of factors contribute to how fast
your order will ship, we generally produce and ship smaller card orders (under
100 cards) within 24 hours. You may track the status of your order and/or
view/print invoices by logging into your account and viewing the "Order
History" page. Any notes to you that we may make on your order will be added to
the invoice. We will do our best to provide you with an estimated production
and delivery date for your order via email if your order will take longer than
24 hours to produce.
Q. Hey! Why was my card order rejected?
A. We reserve the right to reject any card which we deem as
innapropriate, or potentially illegal. This includes cards that contain
government seals or resemble government issued cards such as driver's
licenses or operator's licenses. Any cards using the words "license", "permit",
"gun", "chemical" or any other word indicating possible use of a dangerous
device or substance is considered to be illegal or questionable. Please do
not use our service to create so-called "novelty" cards or cards which may be
used to falsify one's identity.
Inappropriate cards are those that refer to racial
slurs, attacks or threats on the heritage, religion, or sexual preference of
others, pornography, or profanity.
Other types of rejected cards may be those containing copyrighted
artwork and/or trademarks of recognized establishments. Proof of ownership
and/or authority to use such intellectual property may be requested. It is
impossible for any printing service to verify the legal use of all
artwork/logos/trademarks provided by customers. Ultimately, you are responsible
for your actions. Our approval of your order by no means gives you permission
to use official or copyrighted artwork on your card.
Online Card Designer Questions
Q. Can I make a database of Photo ID Badges for my employees on your site?
A. Yes. You can manually create and save each badge
in your own workarea. Whenever you log into your account on DistinctID.com,
your saved cards will be available in the "My Custom Cards" page. You
may also create a "master template" and upload a data file to create hundreds
of cards in your workarea instantly. Any badges saved in your workarea can be
added to your shopping cart and ordered.
Q. Is there a limit to how may cards I can save?
A. Currently, there is no practical card limit
for our standard account customers. Any modifications or enhancements made to
our service and/or policies are reflected in our User
Agreement. We keep our registered users informed of policy and
service changes via internet email.
Q. Do I need to know a lot about image editing in order to use your Online Card Designer?
A. No. You don't have to be a graphics artist to
create decent looking ID Badges and cards on our site. The fastest and easiest
way to produce an ID is to choose one of our existing samples and change
the text to your relevant information. You can choose one of our stock
background images or create your own. You can upload a picture from your
hard-drive or digital camera for any of the image fields. Keep in mind that
pictures that look good on your screen don't always look very good when
printed. Photographs from your digitial camera will normally look good if left
at their original resolution but images taken from web pages will normally look
bad when printed due to their low resolution.
Q. Can I completely design my card image in my favorite image editor rather than using your form fields?
A. Absolutely. Please allow for a 1/8" bleed on each edge of the
card. We recommend that you create images that are at least 300 DPI (dots per
inch). Card dimensions, including bleed are 3-5/8" wide by 2-3/8" wide (3.635"
x 2.375"). Please remember that our file upload only allows for images under
2MB each.
Q. What type of images can I upload into the Card Designer?
A. Our Online Card Designer supports .BMP, .GIF,
.JPG, .PNG, .TIF, and .WMF files. Each image upload is limited to 2MB in size
which should be more than sufficient for most people. Detailed information is
readily available on the web for these formats but here is a quick run-down:
| Image Format |
Description |
| .BMP |
BMP is a Windows format.
BMP retains good image quality because it doesn't implement
any fancy compression algorithm. Because of this, the file sizes can become
rather large. BMP images can have up to 16,777,216 colors (24 bit).
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| .GIF |
GIF is the abbreviation of Graphics Interchange Format.
The primary advantage of the GIF format is it uses a
lossless compression algorithm, so that you don’t lose any information when you
save the file. The down side to GIF's are that they are limited to 256
colors. GIFs are not generally recommended for printed output although
they may retain crisper edges and lines compared to other image formats.
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| .JPG |
JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group.
JPEG is a lossy compression algorithm designed for
compressing photographic-like images as much as possible without affecting
the quality of the image.
The advantage of JPG is the small size and high number of
colors. It is better for photographs. It isn't so great for images with line
art or fields of a solid color.
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| .PNG |
The Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format was designed to replace the older
and simpler GIF format and, to some extent, the much more complex TIFF format.
PNG provides a useful format for the storage of intermediate stages of editing.
Since PNG's compression is fully lossless--and since it supports up to 48-bit
truecolor or 16-bit grayscale--saving, restoring and re-saving an image will
not degrade its quality, unlike standard JPEG (even at its highest quality
settings).
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| .TIF |
Tagged Image File Format is a rather old standard that is
still very popular today because it is well supported on multiple platforms.
It supports a high number of colors and varying compression
algorithms. It is a good all-around file format for print applications.
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| .WMF |
The Windows Meta File (WMF) format is a Windows vector
format. WMF files can contain either pixel-based information or vector
information in 16-bit RGB color space.
Since WMFs support vector-based drawing, they scale at
any resolution while retaining crisp clean edges. Vector images are
perfect for logos, titles, and line art and are a popular format for clip-art.
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Card Questions
Q. What are your cards made of and how are they made?
A. We offer traditional PVC-type plastic cards
which are similar in material and size as a standard credit card (CR80).
Our cards are made of an 80/20 PVC/Polyester (PET)
composition which are more durable and have a higher bend tolerance
than traditional PVC cards. The cards are printed using "over-the-edge"
Fargo Professional Series HDP printers. HDP printers print a reverse image on
the underside of clear film which then gets fused to the card at a high
tempurature. The result is a durable card with a professional quality, glossy
finish. The max resolution of card printers is 300DPI (dots per inch) and our
software renders your images and text at 300 DPI to take maximum advantage of
the printer. The online preview of your card is rendered at 90DPI which is
optimized for online viewing. Your original uploaded images (which may be
300DPI) will be rendered and utilized for the final printed product.
Q. Do you offer cards with magnetic stripes and do you encode them?
A. Yes! Our online card designer allows you to
specify the data for all three tracks on an ISO standard magnetic stripe. We
encode HiCo magnetic stripes which provide the highest level of immunity to
damage by stray magnetic fields. Magnetic stripe readers are "blind" as to
whether a stripe is HiCo or LoCo and are designed to read both.
Q. Do you print proximity cards?
A. We can print on CR80-size Mifare and 125mhz
proximity cards upon request. These are special order items and may have a lead
time of up to 3-6 weeks for the initial order.
Q. Do you print smart cards?
A. We can print on any CR80 sized card. Please call
customer service to discuss your needs.
Q. Do you accept returns on cards?
A. Due to the customized nature of the products offered
through this website, we cannot accept returns for any cards or customized
badge accessories. It is the customer’s responsibility to verify the
acceptability of the card design before ordering. We suggest that you order a
single custom test card to determine if the colors are acceptable. We do
not do color matching (such as Pantone standard) at this time. If you will
be printing barcodes or encoding magnetic stripes on your cards, we strongly
suggest that you first order one test card to confirm that the barcode or
magnetic stripe is formatted correctly, and will work with your card readers
before ordering additional cards.
Bar Code Questions
Q. I know very little about bar codes. Where do I start?
A. Please see our
Bar Code Information page for
information on barcode symbologies.
Q. You don't have a barcode symbology that I need on my card. Can you get it?
A. Please call customer service to discuss your needs.
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