How to Make Student ID Cards

There are three ways a school ends up with student ID cards: print them in house on a card printer, have the school photographer add them to the picture day package, or send the roster to a printing service. Most schools use a mix. This post walks through what each takes, what goes on the card, and how to avoid the problems that show up every fall. If you are weighing up a printer, our guide to choosing an ID card printer goes deeper on the hardware.

Decide what the card has to do

Before anything is printed, settle what the card is for, because it changes what the card needs.

• Identification only. Photo, name, grade and the school's design. Any blank PVC card will do.
• Library, lunch and attendance. Add a barcode of the student ID number, or a magnetic stripe if those systems swipe instead of scan. Ask the system's supplier which they read.
• Door access. The card needs to carry whatever your door readers use, usually prox or a smart card. That has to match the readers exactly, so check before ordering.
• Bus or event entry. Usually a barcode or a printed visual cue such as a color by grade.

Gather the data and photos

Every method runs on the same inputs: a roster and a photo for each student.

• Export the roster from your student information system as a spreadsheet, with one row per student and only the columns the card needs.
• Name each photo file with the student's ID number so photos match rows without manual sorting.
• Use photos taken against a plain background with even light. Picture day photos are ideal, which is one reason many schools leave IDs to their photographer.

Most of the delays in an ID program come from here, not from printing: missing photos, mismatched names and late roster changes. Fix the data first.

Design the card

A student ID is a small card that has to be read at a glance. Keep it simple.

• A large, clear photo and the student's name in a readable size.
• The school name and logo, the school year, and the student ID number.
• The barcode, if you need one, on a plain light background so scanners can read it.
• Emergency or return information on the back, if the card is printed on both sides.

Our student ID card template follows these rules and opens in our card builder ready to edit.

Lock the design before the rush. Changing a layout in late August costs more time than any other single decision.

Keep personal details off the card

Students lose ID cards constantly, so assume every card will end up on the ground somewhere. Print only what the card needs to do its job: photo, name, grade or year, the school's name and the student ID number. Leave home addresses, birthdates and phone numbers off. If the card needs to carry more for a system, put it in the barcode or stripe as a reference number, not in print.

A year in an ID program

Schools that have the smoothest fall plan the year backward from the first day.

• Spring. Decide the design, what the card must do, and whether the main batch is printed in house, by the photographer or by a service. Order printer supplies before summer.
• Early summer. Clean up the roster: graduated students out, new students in, ID numbers confirmed.
• Picture day and August. Photos taken, the main batch printed, cards sorted by grade or homeroom for distribution.
• Through the year. Replacements, retakes and new enrollments, a few at a time.

Plan for replacements

Replacements are not an edge case in a school. Cards are lost, bent, chewed and left in jeans in the wash. Order card stock for the main batch plus a healthy margin, and decide in advance who prints replacements and how quickly. A student without a card can mean a held-up lunch line or a library visit that does not happen.

Standard 30 mil PVC cards last a school year with normal care. Schools issuing cards meant to last several years often choose composite cards, which resist cracking and bending better.

Option 1: print in house

A card printer, card design software, ribbons and blank cards let a school print IDs whenever it needs them. That suits replacements and new students during the year, which never stop. Our Card Imaging software prints straight from a spreadsheet with photos in its XS edition, which suits roster printing.

The trade-off is time. Printing a whole school in one week on a single desktop printer is possible, but it ties up a person and a printer. Plan supplies too: running out of ribbon in the middle of issuance week is the most common avoidable problem we hear about. Our page on blank ID cards covers the stock.

Option 2: the school photographer

Many photographers offer ID cards as part of the picture day package, since they already have every student's photo matched to a name. For the school, this is usually the least work: approve a design, and the cards arrive with the photos. Photographers often have the printing done by a card printing service such as ours. See ID card printing for school photographers.

Option 3: send it to a printing service

Send the roster, photos and design, and the cards come back printed and encoded. This suits schools without a printer, or a main batch that is too big to print in house. Our ID card printing service works this way, and we keep the layout on file so next year only needs a new roster.

The common setup is a mix: the main batch printed by a service or the photographer, and a small printer at the school for replacements and new enrollments through the year. Our page on student ID cards for schools covers the rest of a school card program.