Top Tips For Setting Up Your Printer To Print Labels

We’ve put together a hit list of things to do BEFORE you press print to make sure you get perfectly printed labels.

While you might think that you can just pop your labels into your printer and press print (as you would when printing onto normal blank sheets of A4 paper), you should always take the time to set up your printer properly to improve both the print quality and the accuracy of the print alignment that you get on your labels.

This is because your printer’s settings and setup actually has a lot of influence over how well and how accurately your template will print onto your labels – and if you don’t take the time to select the right settings, you might well find that your perfectly presented template ends up misaligned and your print starts to chip or flake away from your labels.

So, here's the hit list of things you should do to get your print perfect.

• Use the media bypass tray (if your printer has one)
  The media bypass tray is a separate tray that is usually just above or below the paper tray; where the paper tray is designed specifically for processing blank sheets of paper (which are usually 80-90gsm in thickness), the media bypass tray is designed specifically to handle thicker materials – including labels.
  However, as the name suggests, not only is the media bypass tray designed for media other than paper, it also bypasses at least one set of rollers within the printer – this means it offers a straighter, more direct route through the printer, which reduces the possibility of your sheets rotating slightly as they are pulled through and around each set of rollers and this improves the accuracy of your print positioning.
• Check your printer settings
  Printers tend to have a whole variety of settings that are designed to adjust how your printer works to suit the medium that you are printing onto and the type of document or file you are printing. Most printers will have settings that will greatly improve the print quality that you can achieve when you print onto labels and you should always go through your printer’s properties to find and select these options before printing your labels.
  Look for:
  Page Size/Media Size/Page Layout/Media Layout: you MUST make sure your printer is set to an A4 page size or the alignment of your template will be completely distorted as your printer attempts to print to a page size that is larger or smaller than A4.
  Type/Weight: these options will relate to settings that are designed to improve the print quality on a specific type or weight of media; some printers offer specific “Labels” settings, while others will offer similar settings under the heading “Heavy Paper”.
  For example, with laser printers, the “Labels” or “Heavy Paper” settings will increase the heat that is applied and slow down the speed of your printer, which helps the toner to bond firmly in place on the surface of your labels.

These small tips can help save you a lot of time and money (and heartache) by ensuring that your printer is set up to properly handle labels. As always, we also highly recommend doing a test print of your template onto blank paper first, so you can check for any possible issues with the alignment (and make corrections) before you start printing onto your labels proper.

For more handy tips and advice, visit our Help Pages or our Blog; alternatively, you can download a template from our Template Pages and have a go at printing your own labels today! Remember, we also offer a free Sample Request service, so you can always request a couple of sheets to use as a “trial run” to check for yourself that your printer is capable of printing the labels that you need.