I working to very rapidly stand up a small/med company with about 150-200 employees at a production facility with a badge printer. We initially purchased a Zebra ID card printer and quickly ran into ridiculous supply-chain issues getting consumables (lead time in months). Zebra has decent cheap software for designing and printing badges, but it's locked to their printers.
2nd go-around was to purchase an Entrust printer because they are one of the few companies who's supplies are readily available. The problem is the software. They have a hosted ID printing "software" that is very slick and would actually be a good for the workflow of the place but it's REALLY $$$ (close to 5 figures!!).
I had no idea going into this that ID Badge printing is so annoying and potentially expensive.
Our requirements are:
1) Compatible with an Entrust DS2
2) Can change the color of some text/background or a static image depending on credential info (different departments have different colored band along side of the card)
3) No requirements for databases, etc
4) Reasonable cost
5) No need for any API, integrations, etc. Overkill for this scale.
Site isn't large but like many production facilities, they have turnover that they need to stay on top of and to manage access.
Any recommendations that people have experience with and are happy with? If there is a trial version, that's a bonus.