Kansas ID microprint inspection

Kansas driver's licenses include microprinting that is worth examining if you are comparing vendor cards against genuine ones. Here are my observations from comparing a vendor card against a genuine Kansas license.

Location of microprint on Kansas IDs

The current Kansas license uses microprinting in the border area of the card — specifically along the lower and right edges as thin repeating text lines. The text reads "KANSAS" repeatedly in characters approximately 0.3mm tall. There is also a secondary microprint element within the state seal area on the card face, though this is harder to evaluate without higher magnification.

What genuine Kansas microprint looks like

Under a 10x loupe, the characters are distinct with sharp edges. The letter spacing is consistent and the text weight is uniform — the letters do not vary in line thickness from one character to the next. The background under the microprint text is the card substrate color, clean and unobstructed.

Under 20x magnification, individual stroke details are visible — the ends of strokes on letters like T and E are clean rather than ragged. This level of clarity requires the specific fine-line printing equipment used in government document production.

Vendor card comparison

The vendor card I examined showed the microprint in the correct location with characters that read correctly under 10x magnification. The quality degraded at 20x — letters showed more ink spread between strokes, and some character counters (the enclosed spaces in letters like O and B) were partially filled with spread ink.

Under 30x, the difference between genuine and vendor microprint was pronounced — the vendor card showed obvious ink bleeding while the genuine card remained clean. This is the standard quality divide for microprint: most vendor cards pass at 10x but show quality differences at 20x and above. Whether this matters depends on your use case.