


Zebra Card Printers · Genuine Zebra Hardware
Zebra ZC300 — Single and Dual-Sided Colour Card Printer, 300 dpi
Zebra's volume card printer, and the machine most of our Zebra card and ribbon stock is bought for. 300 dpi edge-to-edge colour on CR-80, single or dual-sided, up to 200 full-colour cards an hour. USB and Ethernet are standard, the feeder adjusts to card thickness on the fly, and Zebra covers both the printer and the printhead for three years.
Quick Glance
Key Features
Single or Dual-Sided, 300 dpi
Dye-sublimation thermal transfer, edge-to-edge on standard CR-80 media. Zebra quotes 200 single-sided YMCKO cards an hour, 900 an hour in monochrome, and 140 an hour dual-sided in YMCKOK.
Feeder Adjusts to Card Thickness Itself
Zebra's card feeder senses the thickness of each card as it goes in, across the full 10 to 40 mil range. Swap between 30 mil badges and 10 mil visitor passes without touching a lever or a setting.
Three-Year Warranty Including the Printhead
Zebra's standard features list a three-year limited warranty on printer and printhead. On a machine where the printhead is the single most expensive component, that is the specification worth reading twice.
Detailed Specifications
Throughput figures are Zebra's, based on batch printing over USB. Times vary with computer configuration.
As published in the Zebra ZC300 card printer specification sheet.
Operating temperature 15–35 °C, operating humidity 20–80% non-condensing.
Zebra states the ZC300 is designed to work only with Zebra genuine ribbons. ZC ribbons are region-coded — the EM suffix is the EMEA part for the UAE.
Specifications are provided by the manufacturer and may be updated or changed without prior notice. AtomOffice is not responsible for any discrepancies between the information shown here and the manufacturer's official documentation.
Need-to-Know
The ZC100 and ZC300 look almost identical and share a footprint. The differences that matter are dual-sided printing, networking and the range of ribbons available.
| ZC300 — this page | ZC100 | |
|---|---|---|
| Printing | Single and dual-sided | Single-sided only |
| Colour throughput | 200 cards/hr YMCKO | 150 cards/hr YMCKO |
| Ethernet | Built in as standard | Optional extra |
| Ribbon range | Wide — YMCKO, YMCKOK, half-panel, KrO, KdO and monochromes | Narrower — YMCKO, half-panel and monochromes |
| Best for | Shared departmental use, dual-sided badges, anything networked | A single desk issuing straightforward single-sided cards |
Official & Recommended Options
Everything this printer consumes, in genuine Zebra stock. Click through for full specifications.
Frequently Asked Questions
Three things beyond the printer: a ribbon, blank cards, and card design software. A sensible first order is the 800300-550EM colour ribbon at 300 images, a box of 104523-111 30 mil blanks, and the 105999-310 cleaning kit. That combination prints and protects 300 full-colour badges. Tell us your card design and we will confirm the right ribbon before you commit.
Buy dual-sided if the back of your card carries anything at all — terms and conditions, a barcode, emergency contact details, a signature strip. The card flipper is a field-upgradeable option, so it can be added later, but fitting it at purchase is cheaper and avoids downtime. If your badge is genuinely front-only, the single-sided model is smaller and lighter.
Only if your cards are swiped through a reader — access control, gym turnstiles, time and attendance, payment. It is a field-upgradeable option and handles ISO 7811 tracks 1, 2 and 3 in both high and low coercivity. Without it the printer will still print magnetic stripe card stock perfectly well, it simply cannot write data to the stripe. Contactless and chip cards are a separate question, so ask us if that is your use case.
No. Zebra's specification sheet states plainly that the ZC300 is designed to work only with Zebra genuine ribbons, and the cartridges carry a smartchip the printer authenticates before it will run. There is also a regional dimension: ZC ribbons are region-coded in the part number and an EMEA machine wants the EM suffix. We stock the correct EMEA parts.
The ZC300 is the newer platform and the ZXP Series 3's natural successor. Practical gains are the auto-adjusting card feeder, the colour LCD, built-in Ethernet, host authentication and AES encryption, and the three-year printhead warranty. Note the two use entirely different ribbons, so an existing stock of 800033 cartridges will not carry over. We sell consumables for both if you are running a mixed fleet.
Need a Zebra card printer in the UAE?
Talk to our team about stock, lead time and the right ribbon and card combination for your badge design.

