Thank you for your support and for trusting IDpack to design and produce your id cards, membership cards, employee id, and other applications. Stay tuned for the latest about IDpack in 2010!

May 2010 be an exciting year for all!

Thank you to all IDpack ID card software users for trusting IDpack to design and produce your ID cards.

SOHO-iT has seen a significant growth in the number of IDpack licenses issued during the last few months. Thank you for your support!

IDpack Team

Meet IDpack at Cartes 2009. SOHO-iT, the creator of the popular IDpack ID card software, will be there to meet industry partners and share industry insight.

Following the latest release of IDpack 8 and IDpack Free Edition, SOHO-iT has lately released the second version of SignPack electronic signature software with fingerprint integration. In an effort to close the identity gap from personal ID design and production, to electronic signature biometric capture and security, the software development firm is currently working on Labelpack. Labelpack Label software is a tool to design and produce all label types, and as always at a very competitive price. 

Should you wish to meet M. Bourdages on site, please contact SOHO-iT Inc.'s head office (info@soho-it.com) before the Cartes 2009 event takes place to plan a meeting at both parties convenience.

Look us up at Cartes 2009!

IDpack Team

Free ID card software hall of fame greets IDpack Free Edition! Ten years following the very first release of IDpack ID card software, the makers of IDpack give you IDpack Free Edition. Packed with many of the popular features found on the full licensed versions of the popular photo ID software (IDpack Professional, IDpack Business and IDpack Element), IDpack Free Edition now offers endless possibilities at a competive price... 0$.

What's the catch? There isn't any! No need to cope with expiry periods, and you can design and produce your cards at will.

Why release a free version of IDpack? Simple. It's a powerful solution and we feel more people should have access to it.

What about support? IDpack Free Edition has its own support section so one can benefit from online support.

What about the licensed versions? There are many benefits to gain from getting an IDpack Professional, Business or Element license. IDpack Professional, IDpack Business, and IDpack Element offer many more features such as advanced biometrics capturing (Professional), unlimited batch-printing (all 3 versions), software support by e-mail and phone (all 3 versions), and much more. Visit the IDpack comparison table for more information.

Download IDpack Free Edition

Enjoy!

IDpack color coding feature is easy to use and available for all IDpack users as all three versions, IDpack Professional, IDpack Business, and IDpack Element, make it available.

Long time IDpack customers have just made a great discovery, ID card color coding!

Now what is color coding and what does it do for you in the real world? You might have noticed when participating in a trade show or other public event that ID card and photo id bearers carry cards with similar design for one particular event, yet the background color or flashy colored stripe going through the badge or card may vary in color from one card holder to another. That's color coding, a visually attractive way to differentiate one business or operational unit from another.

^{Figure A - IDpack Designer Module's color code tool}

IDpack Designer module provides you with this option. Notice the rectangular shaped tool with the database cylinder symbol in the menu to your left, that's the "Color Code Tool" (see figure A, in light red circle). Simply select the tool and click in the drawing area. This inserts a blue square in your design… don't worry, you can still modify the shape's size and position using the toggle boxes appearing on each corner and side of the color code shape. The color blue is simply for the design phase of your ID card or photo ID. Once you open your design in IDpack Producer Module and add badge or card information, the identification cards generated will display the appropriate color on the card with respect to the "Color Code" settings defined in the IDpack Designer Module (see figure B). Make sure to make your selection in the color code drop-down menu for each badge as you add attendees (Not shown in these screenshots... Sorry!).

Should you wish to modify the color code for a description or function, you may do so in the color code legend once again found in IDpack's Designer Module, "Color Code" tab.

^{Figure B - IDpack's Badge Setup color code legend}

You now have color coded cards ready for batch printing.

Should you have inquiries about color coding with IDpack ID card software, you may visit the Knowledge base or contact support for further assistance: IDpack ID card software support page.

Cheers!

Warning! It was brought to our attention that an IDpack 8 torrent on peer-to-peer networks contains a virus. The site prompts the user to install an application before initiating the download process. This software application triggers the installation of a virus on your computer station. This virus will use your computer to spam search engines like Yahoo and social networks like Twitter.

The torrent will not provide you with IDpack ID card software. It’s simply a hoax to spam the web.

IDpack does not promote this kind of behavior, which is why we recommend acquiring your very own license of IDpack or downloading the trial version. Throughout the installation process, if you don’t see the following window with the publisher name Aptika or SOHO-iT, chances are it is not genuine IDpack product, in which case it is much safer to abort to not harm your computer.

Thank for sharing this message with your peers, friends and colleagues to help prevent unwanted events.

IDpack Team   

It was brought to our attention that in the design process, with IDpack Designer module, users enjoy incorporating a variety of security features such as a barcode, electronic signature or fingerprint, along with design elements such as images, photos and text elements. The late IDpack 7 (Pro, Plus and Lite) did not provide the ability to freeze an object as a background image. Card designers found themselves hassling when trying to pick and drag around the object or simply unable to click the right item.

Eureka! IDpack 8 Professional, Business and Element now come with a background image setting option. How does it work you might ask? Quite simple, right-click the design object you would like to set as your background image, and select "Set as background" option form the contextual menu. This object will now be set as your background image. Bear in mind there is no way to move it around or modify it. Once it's there that's it! Ah, but one option remains if you find it does not look like you had imagined it, delete it! Yes deleting your background will permanently delete the image allowing you to insert a new image as a background image.

This option is one of the many features found in the latest release of IDpack Professional, IDpack Business and IDpack Element ID card software. Enjoy!

Note: Thank you for sharing your your stories, needs and ideas in regards to IDpack. Our ears are wide open, that is one of the things that make IDpack so powerful and reliable.

We are please to announce that IDpack 8 has been updated on more than 1500 Download sites around the world! Thanks to Submit-Everywhere for their impressive service and follow up.

In less than a few days, 2300 websites worldwide is talking about IDpack ID card software! Thanks to our dedicated customers and users, close to 16 000 computer stations around the world are using one of the three versions of IDPack: IDpack Professional, IDpack Business and IDpack Element.

Stay tuned for upcoming tips and tricks for IDpack users. ID card designing and printing made easy!

IDpack. Smart Security. Smart Price.^TM

ID card software solutions provide many exciting functionalities to help organizations enhance their security requirements by providing access control cards, membership cards, convention badges, student ID cards, employee ID, event passes, and many other identification tools. Knowing what key features to look for is what counts most. Here are some interesting guidelines about ID card software.

Whether you want to produce ID cards, ID badges or other security or identification credentials, it is of the highest importance to answer the two following questions:

1. What are your security requirements?
2. How you plan to enhance them?

Your company security policy may give you some direction in choosing what security options to look for. It is always a good initiative to steer to upper management for current and upcoming organizational security requirements. Get these requirements together in a comparison chart and start your ID card software analysis.

Design Features

Most serious solutions provide basic image editing tools within the designer interface. Unless you are familiar with advanced and expensive solutions like Adobe and Corel, and don’t mind taking the time to take a class or two to get familiar with them, it is recommended that you focus on integrated solutions. This means being able to insert and edit images and objects within the ID card software solution.

Look for dynamic tools or objects, which make you much more efficient when adding data labels like the cardholder’s name, company, function, unit and other useful information. Conditional objects provide you with the ability to display event-triggered objects. A good example of how this may come in handy is, assuming the event hosts choose to serve alcoholic beverages, which are unsuitable for minors, to use IDs that use an attention-grabbing graphic object like “21+” to help waiters distinguish under-aged attendees from the crowd.

Security Enhancement

There are two areas which one should investigate for security; the security integrated in the ID card software and the security features embedded onto ID cards and badges produced with the solution.

If you are producing identification cards or ID badges for 1,000+ people, this means you are managing, storing and being responsible for the confidentiality of 1,000+ database entries. To enforce this obligation, you need password protection on the software at the very least, or better advanced security options and, ideally, user privileges management. User privileges management provides you with tight control over user actions from the design process to badge creation, badge edition, badge deletion, printing, data export, access to activity logs, and so on. This is exceptionally useful in accreditation or registration procedures, avoids unwanted security mistakes, and secures your computer station against fraudulent practices.

Security enhancement on ID cards and ID badges often refers to biometrics and card encoding. Biometrics is a digital representation of a unique physical feature of a person that may be used to recognize a person. ID photos, signatures and fingerprints are excellent examples of biometrics. Encoding features such as barcodes, magnetic stripes, and SmartChips provide additional security information and may also store other types of information about the carrier. The ID card software is the gateway to these security features and their properties. Bear in mind that you will also need the appropriate card printer and other peripherals to capture some of these security features. Not all card printers print in color, double-sided, or allow card encoding. To capture signatures you will need a signature pad.

Color coding is an easy and quick way to enhance onsite security by attributing colors to specific business units or access rights control. For example, a red rectangle going across identification cards or ID badges could refer to people from the finance unit of a company or volunteers for the event.

Production Options

ID cards and identification badges come in many categories and styles. One thing to decide up front is whether you wish to print single or double-sided cards, as some solutions don’t allow this option. Whether you wish to print on plastic (PVC) cards, paper badges, or labels, the medium supported is another important quality to take into account.

To save a few bucks, look for the forced K panel option. Forcing the K-panel tells your printer to print selected objects on the ID card only using the black panel from the ribbon. It avoids wasting expensive color ribbons to produce grayscale or black colored objects.

Serious ID card software solutions empower you with photo editing features for crisp and clear ID photos. This feature allows you to adjust brightness, contrast and color levels. You may also import a picture from a file or a camera and crop the photo to the right size and position it without using a third-party solution.  

ID card Software Connectivity and Integration

Microsoft Access and/or ODBC database connectivity is where your organization can significantly gain on speed and efficiency. Some solutions available on the market will, with a little extra work, connect to your enterprise solution with the command line interface, thereby integrating the ID card software within your business processes.

ID card software solutions empower you to produce a variety of exciting and useful identification cards ranging from membership cards, employee ID, student ID, access control cards, convention badges, event badges, loyalty cards and many other possibilities.

It is with great pride that the IDpack team launches the Official IDpack dedicated blog.

IDpack has been for the last 10 years taking part in crafting the future of ID card software solutions. We have stood by many of our customers and users to challenge the IDpack software solution and constantly push its limits. In our effort to making IDpack the best ID card software solution, we feel it's time to give back and provide a new voice to IDpack customers and community. The IDpack Twitter and Youtube channel community pages will support this initiative to help fill the gap between our development team and the users and provide timely and reliable information.

Here are a few ideas of what will be discussed on the IDpack blog:

• IDpack ID card software tips, tricks, issues and announcements
• Id card and ID badge latest security technologies
• Industry best practices
• Tips and tricks of the trade for secure and eye-catching identification cards
• Other topics such as success stories from IDpack users and industry news

You are welcome to provide ideas or topics you as an IDpack user hope to read about to answer your questions. We will make this experience more than worth while as much of this relevant material will be posted in the IDpack Support section.

IDpack ID card software is the product of 10 years of R&D. You are the one to thank for the "R" (research) by providing us with your observations and ideas to tailor IDpack to market expectations… let's keep the wheel turning!

We strongly recommend you keep an eye on industry news and resources on the blog's right column.

Follow us on the IDpack Twitter page and stay tuned for upcoming IDpack how to videos on the IDpack Youtube channel. You can also subscribe to the blogs RSS feed icon to the right of your screen.

Thank you for following the IDpack blog!

IDpack Team
IDpack.info