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Linux-Friendly Label Printer Recomendations?
pdkl95 writes "I have been using some small, simple desktop label printers for quite a while now. Unfortunately, it's rapidly becoming clear that my printing needs are for something far more 'industrial strength.' Several of the label printers have failed, and they never really had the management features I wanted. So, does anybody have recommendations on label printers, that can hold up to a quite heavy load? The catch is that I'm printing to them from CUPS under Linux, and it seems like specialty-printers are a windows-centric field."
We use Datamax I series at work printing from linux. All the configuration can be done with simple ascii characters, also the label fornating.
I am not that familiar with printing in general, but I know the printer company/brand Brother often (if not always) releases Linux compatible drivers for their hardware. They are great for any standard printer. If you can find any label printers that they make, I imagine it would work very well. It is probably at least worth Googling....
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I understand that this may not be actually answering your question, but, if you have *any* Windows systems in your office running XP Professional or Vista Business/Enterprise, you might try getting a label printer for one of those. These OSes come with IIS, and you can easily write a .NET web service that you can then access via PHP from your Linux machine and print labels that way. Yes, a hacky solution indeed, but it works if you can't find any compatible printers for Linux.
It sucks that manufacturers don't really make printer drivers for a lot of high-end equipment for Linux, but I suppose that's the nature of things, when the vast majority of people who would need them tend to only use Windows or OS X.
I use the Brother PT-9500PC a lot. Very well supported under linux, they have their own driver page. Connects by USB.
Try Sato America.
http://www.satoamerica.com/
They are industrial oriented. You can get all sorts of solutions, of which the most universal would be serial based. You can connect those up to almost anything with a serial port, fill it up with large rolls of labels and drive it all in your own code if you want to.
Yes, I know, their own software is Windows based. Don't let that be the stumbling block.
Two jobs ago I worked at a luxury goods manufacturer and we printed items tags on a SATO serial printer off of our main frame. Its just a matter of sending the right control codes over the serial port.
Labels come in most shapes and sizes. I believe we're using the LP2844 at the office; I'd have to double check but I believe UPS and FedEx send these out to their customers as well.
They are rugged. CUPS prints to them trivially. Labels are not terribly expensive, and they are fast.
You're assuming that he's labeling letters rather than labeling something like test tubes on a one-by-one basis (ie, a sheet of labels would be wasted)
Googling around, it looks like if you take care of a few oddities you can use certain Dymo LabelWriters with CUPS. There's an older howto here. We've got a few we've used (on windows) for years.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I use zebra printers with a couple of clients - Linux + CUPS, no problem. You can find them online dirt cheap, just clean the rollers with alcohol to get them printing good.
Do you have ESP?
We currently use DataMax I Series printers (specifically the DMX-I 4208 model). We've also used Zebra printers in the past. These are heavy duty printers using roll-fed label media (there's an option for a custom cutterhead, so you can actually have a label length specific to each print job).
These things are built like tanks and they have been amazingly trouble-free. You'll pay a price corresponding to this level of reliability but we've found them worth it. We print literally thousands of labels a month in critical line-of-business applications. The printers function much like laser printers in terms of their capability--all points addressable printing, DPL (equivalent to HP PCL) rendering language, integrated IP networking, self-hosted web administration pages, and so on.
Now the (few & relatively minor) downsides. I cannot comment on their Linux driver support. We use Windows Seagull drivers to host ours (Datamax doesn't make their own drivers, last I checked). Also we had to get 1 firmware update and 1 driver update to resolve a couple of infrequent but otherwise knotty problems.
There's no way to have multiple label media pre-loaded and software programmable (the equivalent of a cut-sheet laser printer's addressable drawers).
Oh, and they come with a decent manual. How many printers do that now?
Or maybe they're actually doing work and don't want to sit there counting labels, going back to their desk and changing the print settings, and then dashing back and coaxing a fragile sheet of labels through a machine that will eat it 30% of the time, instead of just clicking the little printer button and peeling off a label.
Um, the guy is NOT asking for a laser printer. I'm sure he already has a laser printer and was using a label printer cause lasers suck at label printing tasks. Label printers operate quite different. Manually feeding and re-feeding and re re re re re re re re re re feeding a sheet in a laser printer, modifying the print settings for each label is NOT the answer! Don't forget the 4 hours of labor with the printer torn apart trying to get loose labels off the inside of the printer, and the costs of replacement drums you have destroyed. A laser printer for *most* common label printing tasks is using the "hammer to drive in a screw" approach.
Keep in mind that label printer label stock comes in a lot more options than laser printer label stock. Some are variable length where you can print something really short or a foot long depending on the label needed. Some have special adhesive, some are laminated. Some are thermal paper where others are thermal transfer.
The solution is a unix friendly commercial unit. What makes them unix friendly? Simple: you can get programming docs for them. Zebra's are nice and you can even print by sending XML to it. Rather than trying to get a CUPS driver, which is pretty silly for labels, you put the "driver" in the application. The thing is, printing lots of labels just isn't something traditional apps (open office) are good at (outside of the traditional "print 400 copies of the same label" or "mailmerge"). You are much better off with a quick and dirty (web?) app that sends the right formatting commands directly to the printer. You can certainly get a cups driver for many many label printers, it's just not the best thing for cups to be in the middle between the app and the printer in most label printing cases that I have run across (years ago, I worked with industrial label printers.)
Unfortunately, it is IMPOSSIBLE for any of us to answer the question because we only have the "I need a computer that uses electricity" level of detail. What exactly does he need the labels for? Shipping boxes? Equipment tags? Wires? File folders? e-stamps? Can't recommend anything without knowing how it's going to be used.