Label Planet
Will my printer / photocopier print labels?
Answer:
If you are not sure if your printer can handle labels, we recommend consulting your printer’s manual, which will list the types and weights of materials that your printer can successfully process. Most printers will also include settings and features that are designed to improve the print quality and accuracy of alignment that your printer can achieve so you should make sure that you set up your printer correctly to improve the result you get when you press print.
In particular, you should load your labels narrow edge leading (portrait) into the media bypass tray (providing your printer has one) and go through your printer’s properties to check that the page size is set to A4, that you have selected a specific “Labels” or “Heavy Paper” print setting, that no scaling options (such as “Fit To Page”) are selected, and that no options such as “Ignore Printer Settings” or “Use Driver Settings” are selected.
All of our label products are made with materials that are suitable for use with standard desktop printers; they are also cut to specific shapes, sizes, and layouts that help to avoid the problem of labels separating and jamming in printers.
Some materials are designed specifically for use with laser printers only or inkjet printers only, while others can be used with either. The printer compatibility of all of our label materials is clearly indicated on our range pages, product pages, and product packaging. You should NEVER try to print inkjet labels with a laser printer or laser labels with an inkjet printer – at best you will end up with extremely low quality print that flakes away or smears but at worse you may end up damaging your printer. If you want to create waterproof labels you will need to use a laser printer as inkjet inks are usually water-based, which means they will smudge or run if they come into contact with water (or are handled a lot).
We don’t recommend any specific printer models (you should choose one that suits your individual needs and budget) but we do have three top tips:
- We recommend OKI & HP printers as they tend to handle different materials (and high volumes) very efficiently.
- Choose a dedicated printer (with a media bypass tray) rather than an “All-In-One” machine; the latter are designed to do several tasks to an okay standard (and may not be able to print labels at all), while a dedicated printer will do one specific task (printing) to an excellent standard – they will also offer a better range of settings and features to give you greater control over the accuracy and print quality that you can achieve.
- Choose a printer with a duty cycle that exceeds the usage you actually need; the duty cycle describes the number of sheets that a printer can print to a consistent quality within a specific time frame (usually a month).