Printing Integrated Labels
Here at the zoo we’re often asked for advice on printing integrated labels from a variety of ecommerce front ends, browsers and devices. This is a lion’s den and there many variables that impact on your print.
• Which label layout do you need?
• What printer are you using and does it need any particular setup?
• What machine, browser or software are you printing from?
Which label layout do you need?
There are many different ecommerce platforms, many different ways of printing your invoices or dispatch labels and therefore, of course, many different integrated labels, such as ebay postage labels, amazon returns labels, paypal postage labels and numerous others.
We have used our own research and customer feedback to find which labels are compatible with which selling managers; we’ve made it as simple as possible for you to choose which label you need. Take a look at our Which Label section and simply click on your selling manager. If you simply use a word processor to print your labels then all of our labels have free Word templates to help you setup your print.
We know that we haven’t identified all labels for all selling platforms. If you have questions about particular platforms, drop us a line here and we’ll see what we can find out. Equally if you know some of our labels work with selling platforms we haven’t listed please share the love and let us know so that we can pass the information on.
What printer are you using and does it need any particular setup?
Here we are at the mouth of the lions den! Printers are great when they do what you expect and hard work when they don’t. On the whole you can just load the correct labels for your selling manager or Word template, hit print and away you go.
There are of course exceptions. Some printers need you tell them up front that you’ve put labels in the printer – they then get ready for the thicker paper. Some printers have different non-printable margins to others (the area round the outside of a page where the printer physically isn’t capable of printing). In my experience some printers simply like to be talked to nicely when printing integrated labels. Due to the massive range of printers available, it is difficult to provide one solution for all instances. We can however point you in the right direction.
Your first port of call should always be the printed or CD based manual that came with the printer. If, like me, you file such things under ‘B’ for bin soon after you bought the printer then head to the manufacturers website to find the manual for your printer (and usually their FAQ’s too).
Here are a couple of suggestions to get you going.
https://www8.hp.com/uk/en/drivers.html
https://support.lexmark.com/index?page=driverSupport&locale=en&userlocale=EN_US
https://www.epson.co.uk/gb/en/viewcon/corporatesite/support
https://software.canon-europe.com/
What machine, browser or software are you printing from?
Moving even further into the lion’s den and we’ve found that the computer type and exactly how your selling manager or browser is setup can make a difference to where your print appears on the page!
If you’re using something like a browser based solution for printing integrated labels (for example Ebay Selling Manager Pro) then we’ve found which browser you use can make as much as 5 or 6mm difference as to where your print appears on the page. There even appear to be differences between the same browser on PC and Mac. For example printing from Firefox on a Mac seems to put things in a different position on the page to printing from Firefox on a PC.
This can make things hard work sometimes. We’ve found that changing the print margins on each browser can really help you out. Mint Printables has kindly provided instructions on how to change print margins on the 3 most common browsers here
If you’re using particular selling manager software then the help file or online help for that software should be able to tell you how to change not only print margins but a whole host of other settings too.
A Final Note.
There are many useful forums on the internet about printing integrated labels, and they’re always worth a look – if only for sympathy from others with similar issues. You can also download templates for any of the labels so you can test them before you commit to an order.
Additionally you can request a sample pack for free once you think you’re up and running; this will let you test with actual stock. To request samples simply select the product you like the look of and under the ‘Box Size’ dropdown menu select ‘sample’ and follow the prompts.
Essentially you need to invest some time up front and once you have your settings nailed ensure they’re set in stone and noted down somewhere (just in case the settings are lost).
