Printing PDF labels on a Zebra or Citizen label printer
PDF by Zaweba works with label printers like Zebra and Citizen that list no paper sizes, offering the loaded label as Printer's paper and remembering it.
Shipping labels, product labels and barcodes often arrive as PDFs, and printing them on a label printer can be oddly frustrating. Many label printers don't list paper sizes the way an office printer does, so ordinary print windows offer sizes that don't match the label, and the result comes out shrunk, cropped or turned the wrong way. PDF by Zaweba has specific support for these printers.
Printers that list no paper sizes
Label printers such as Zebra and Citizen models often list no paper sizes at all. Instead they report only the label currently loaded. PDF by Zaweba recognises this and offers that loaded label as Printer's paper, choosing it by default.
In practice that means you open the label PDF, choose File, then Print, pick the label printer, and the paper is already set to the label in the machine. No hunting through a list of A4, Letter and envelope sizes for something that isn't there.
Remembering the last label
Each printer remembers the paper last printed on it. If you have one printer loaded with shipping labels and another with small product labels, each keeps its own setting. The next time you print, the right label is already chosen.
That's a real time saver in a small business or warehouse where labels are printed many times a day. It also avoids the classic mistake of a whole batch printed at the wrong size because the paper setting drifted.
Labels wider than long
Some labels are wider than they are long. A label wider than long is used the way it feeds through the printer. That avoids the common problem of a label printing sideways, or squashed into the wrong orientation, because the print window assumed a portrait page.
Getting labels right
Load the correct labels before printing. The app offers whatever label the printer reports as loaded, so the printer needs to know what's in it. If you change label rolls, let the printer pick up the new size before you print.
Print at actual size where the label PDF was made for that exact label. Scaling options in the Print window, such as fit or shrink large only, are useful when the PDF's page and the label don't quite match, but for a label made to size, actual size keeps barcodes at the size they were designed.
Barcodes deserve particular care. A barcode printed slightly too small can fail to scan. If a barcode label prints with margins or looks shrunk, check the scaling before printing a batch.
Print one label first. It's the cheapest test there is, and it catches orientation and size problems before they cost a roll.
Storing settings in the document
If you make label PDFs that others print, File, then Print settings in the document lets you store scaling, copies and other choices in the PDF itself, so the Print window starts from them. Actual size stored in a label document saves the next person from guessing.
Part of a fuller Print window
Label support sits within the Print window of PDF by Zaweba, which also shows a preview of each sheet, lets you choose pages and copies, and offers a wide range of paper and scaling choices. For label work, the preview is especially helpful: you see exactly how the label will sit before anything is printed. And like the rest of the app, it all works offline, with your printer, on your own PC.
