US Patent 9375945 Media gate for thermal transfer printers

A thermal transfer printer having a media gate and a method for its use are presented. The media gate prevents the improper loading of thermal transfer paper and/or thermal transfer ribbon into a thermal transfer printer by preventing access to the wrong track. In this way, a user cannot feed (i.e., route) the paper/ribbon along the wrong track (i.e., path) when loading (or reloading) paper/ribbon into the thermal transfer printer. In some embodiments, the media gate may have printing (e.g., icons) to provide a user with guidance for proper media loading.