Conservation Approach to Thermal Printer Ribbon Preservation and Imaging

Thermal transfer printers such as dye sublimation printers may be used in the production of documents including plastic cards. Partial or fully used ribbons can arise as evidence and bear images of printed information. Thermal printer ribbons are generally produced on a polyester base and come in a variety of configurations depending on the printer model and application. For example, some ribbons will print the colour panels of yellow, magenta, cyan and black, with a clear top coat to resist fading. Other ribbons may be able to include ultraviolet reactive printing or other specialised print features. The manner in which to record and preserve such ribbons in a manual fashion requires consideration of several factors. Keeping a used ribbon in its continuous form on spools for photography with transmitted light may appear at first to offer advantages over segmentation into constituent segments. However this would entail significant amounts of handling of the ribbon likely resulting in damage. The proper use of polyester sleeves has provided a means to achieve the goal of imaging and preservation as the sleeves do more than simply hold the used ribbons flat, they provide an enclosure to minimise degradation. Additionally, properly constructed polyester sleeves permit imaging of the ribbons with fewer optical flaws and alignment issues. This paper describes a conservation approach to thermal printer ribbon preservation and imaging.