Creating and printing barcodes can be a long and challenging task. But, using Barcode Label Software can save precious time for many business owners. Here’s how we can help you get the most out of barcode label software.

Barcode label software includes simple bar code generators to complex programs that manage labels, templates and printing from a large database or ERP system.  With 20 years of experience – pick up the phone and speak to one of the team – our expert advice will save you time.

You may be a business owner, a production manager, or an individual selling just a few products.  Regardless of your role, you need a way to produce high quality barcodes – printed to specification.

If you have a wide range of products with different descriptions or prices then you need software that links to a database or spreadsheet, then you’ll need label design software that can communicate directly with your label printer in it’s native printer language.

If you sell products through a distributor or middleman, then you’ll need to speak their language and print a variety of different barcodes, using multiple fonts.

Supermarkets, pharmaceuticals and automotive industries all have heavily regulated, predefined label formats.  We can help with barcode label software that will meet these standards.

Barcode label software – Questions you need to ask

Before choosing a bar code software package, take time to evaluate your needs.

(1) Are you creating and printing a lot of barcodes for business use?

(2) Do you need to meet industry or customer label specifications?

(3) Will you need to use data from other software programs?

(4) Are you planning to add design features to your labels?

Once you have the answers to these questions, contact us for advice or take a look at these pages:

label design and print software

Download trial software here.

If you use barcode labels, you need to decide if you print your own (along with the software, labels and probably a specialist thermal barcode label printer) OR do you simply buy rolls of pre-printed labels – printed to your specifications.  This article will give you the information you need to decide.

The case for Pre-Printed Labels

If you need to print lots of labels, by that I mean tens of thousands of labels, outsourcing it to a specialist like us has advantages.  Especially if:

• Each barcode label is identical.
• Your barcode labels are sequentially numbered.
• Your labels will be applied permanently.  A specialised label can be non-removable and even indestructible – maybe you want the label to go through a furnace, or repeated washes.
• Security is important to you – if you can print your own labels then others might be able to do the same.  Holograms or security cuts will make your labels hard to copy.
• Very small volumes of labels.  If you need just a few thousand labels infrequently, then the cost of the printer and software makes the idea of outsourcing a quick and easy option, without a learning curve and time spent getting up to speed with a thermal label printer.
• You’re printing tags.  Printing tags isn’t easy through a label printer (it’s not impossible – but tags specifications are limited).  If you need specialised tags – for example very small, metal, weather proof (perhaps for permanent attachment to fixed assets like furniture, computers or outdoor equipment – think party rental equipment or rental machinery, or even floor labels in a warehouse.)
• You need very specialised labels, particularly for niche applications such as automotive, medical/health, pharmaceutical, defence or logistics – handing over printing to a barcode label specialist able to print the data you need, on the right material, in the correct sizes would mean a faster solution for you.

The Case for Print Your Own Labels

If you can’t buy pre-printed labels, printing your own labels might prove to be a better option if:

• You need to print unique customer information on each label (such as delivery addresses, purchase order numbers etc.)
• You need to print weight, batch or quantity information on your labels.
• You print small batches, maybe hundreds or a few thousand, on a regular basis.
• You have simple white labels to print onto.
• You’re printing onto direct thermal labels – labels that have a relatively short life and turn brown if subjected to heat.
• You need labels urgently and lead times might be a problem.
• You’re printing tickets or receipts that change daily.

What you need in order to print your own labels, tags and tickets

So you’ve decided to pre-printed labels aren’t for you and you’re going to print your own labels.  This is what you’ll need to get started:

You’ll need to buy a label printer.  Thermal labels are fast and cost effective compared to ink jet or laser printers.  Take a look through our printer pages to help you decide.

You’ll need label design software to turn your ideas and data in to labels.  Don’t rely on Microsoft Word or Excel to give you the results you need. Take a look at the most popular label design software here.

Labels, tickets or tags.  Choose what’s best for your application and make sure it meets any compliance requirements.

Thermal transfer ribbons – this is the ink your labels (tickets or tags) need to be seen.  There is an art to matching the best thermal transfer ribbons to the label or tag material, especially if you are printing onto an unusual material such as plastic or other synthetic material. More about thermal ribbons.

If your labels are critical to your business operations then think about back up printers in case they break down or take out a service contract.

Take the guess work out of labelling, get the help of the label printing experts, call us or email from our contact us page.

Expert Labels Ltd supplies organisations with specialist label printers, barcode scanners, blank or pre-printed labels and thermal ribbons.  We ​provide consultancy services so our clients can take full advantage of barcodes and streamline label printing.

IT and production managers call us when:

• They need down-to-earth advice to solve their label printing problems
• They’re looking for particular labels to solve a specific problem
• They don’t want to waste time chasing suppliers, checking proofs and matching ribbons for the best results.
• They’re looking for new label printers but want fast expert advice and help choosing the best label printers
• ​They know they could benefit from using barcodes but don’t know how​
• Want help integrating printing into their company’s systems

Expert Labels are different from most label companies:

• We have hands on experience with the whole of the label printing process from manufacturing labels to printing to scanning the finished label or tag
• We are a true one stop shop – able to provide everything you need to print your own labels
• We are able to match the right labels to the right printers and use the best ribbons
• We are independent suppliers of a wide range of products so we are able to present the best product for your particular application
• We love solving problems for our clients
• We build long term relationships with our clients – some of whom have worked with us for more than twenty years

QR codes. You’ll have seen them everywhere, on business cards, posters, shop windows, product packaging, but what are they?  How can they help us? How can we get them?

What can QR Codes Be Used For?

Here are some ways you might use QR codes:

* Include your electronic business card (vCard)
* Have customers fill in satisfaction surveys on their phones
* Competition entries
* Automatically add your event to someone’s calendar
* Have an electronic RSVP on invitation letters or cards
* Direct smartphone users to “how to use” youtube videos – to watch on the phone
* Use a coupon to encourage visitors to visit your business
* Follow on Twitter
* Create electronic queuing tickets at your service counter.

What are QR codes?

QR codes are the pattern of dots at the top of this article.  It’s a form of 2D barcode that can store a wide range of information.  Because QR codes can contain thousands of characters of data, it’s really easy to encode a website URL and other things that you don’t have space in with a standard barcode.

QR codes have been around since 1994 when Denso in Japan developed them.  Slowly they’re appearing more and more – even our home internet router has a QR code on it (scan it and it enters the password into your phone).

To read a QR code, you need a special barcode scanner or camera.  Smartphone cameras are able to read them as standard.  There are lots of free QR readers available for iPhone or Android.

When you scan a QR code, your phone’s browser goes directly to the website (or adds a person’s contact details or starts playing an instruction video or what ever else the QR code says).

What’s exciting is that you can create your own QR codes for free and very easily.  Go on and use them to create QR codes for business cards, birthday invitations or posters.  Phone us now and have us make up QR codes labels to go on your products, taking your clients to a ‘how to use’ video on Youtube.

How do you create QR codes?

It’s easier than you might have thought.

Here’s how to include a QR code in your brochures, flyers, posters, business cards, mailings, wedding invitation, product labels (it doesn’t have to be promotional material). The code doesn’t even have to be in hard copy – it can just as easily be a digital image to display on a phone screen.

First – visit one of the many free online QR-code generators on the web that allow you to produce your own codes.

Try www.qrstuff.com/ for starters.  It’s very easy to use and it’s free. From the homepage, choose what you want to encode in the code.  Choose from a straightforward web address to phone numbers or calendar entries.  I’ve used a map as an example in this QR code to the left (scan it and see).  Choose a colour and hit the download QR code button. Your QR code is available to download it as an image file for offline use or to include on an email or webpage like this one.

Download the image file you create and use it as a graphic in your work and you’re up and running in five minutes.

We’ve seen QR codes used to send customers to a special-offer page on a website, online maps directing them to a location or to encourage people to attend an in-store promotion where their code will entitle them to a discount. The possibilities are endless.

How do I scan QR Codes?

Reading a QR code is also simple, as long as you have a smartphone. You’ll need to install one of the many free QR code scanning apps that are available online. I use QR Reader (which enables you to create QR codes on your phone) but QR Code Reader is easy to use as well.  Most are free from your app store.

In addition to smart phones, we supply a range of 2D barcode readers that will scan QR codes.  Email me at info@expertlabels.co.uk if you want to know more.

Added extras

There are a few things you can do with QR codes to make them more powerful.  Including Google Analytics tracking codes will tell Google Analytics where that visitor came from – even down to an individual individual poster. You can use URL shortners such as Bit.ly to make your code shorter.  Shortners re-direct  visitors to your website but at the same time record when the QR code was scanned.  The benefit here is that you can change where the URL shortner takes you.  You can also easily track how many people are scanning your QR code.

Start using QR codes today

1.  Go to www.QRStuff.com and make a QR code that sends visitors to a contact us page on your website.

2.  Print it onto labels

3.  Stick the labels onto your business card

4.  If you want to see how many people scan the QR code, create a bit.ly account.  Create a bit.ly url that points to your contact us page and take that bit.ly url and encode it into your QR code.  Check back to your bit.ly account from time to time to see how many scans your code gets.

Try scanning the QR code above. As always, I’d love to hear your stories about your barcode experiences and if you need help with selecting QR-code scanners or label printers, please contact us. You can email info@expertlabels.co.uk or call us on 01359 271 111 for more information.

Updated 21 Jan 2022

One of our clients, Gareth had a problem.  He had 600 packs of his premium pet food sitting in Goods In at Tesco’s Bolton distribution centre.  He had worked long and hard to win the Tesco’s account and now his credibility with this prestigious account was in jeopardy.  He was under pressure and did not want to upset this account.  He needed 600 barcode labels urgently.

Gareth’s original supplier had made a mistake with their barcode and this had been rejected by Tesco,  With the label unscannable, the goods couldn’t be booked in and Tesco were threatening to return the consignment.  Gareth had to act fast.

He needed 600 replacement labels – but he didn’t know where to start.  He didn’t know what kind of barcode he needed – all he knew was that he needed them and he needed them fast.  He started to phone possible suppliers – looking for solutions.

That’s when he reached us – on an afternoon in November.  Gareth explained the situation and asked what could be done.  The question for us – was do we have the label he needed on the shelf.  Secondly, we needed to confirm the type of barcode he needed and then could we print it ready for him to pick up that afternoon.

Gareth emailed us across a picture of the label, along with the dimensions he needed.

Luckily we hold a few hundred rolls of labels on the shelf in our office.  Whilst that sounds like a lot, when you consider all the combinations of size, material, adhesive, finish and colour, that’s a small selection of what we get asked for on a weekly basis.  But, Gareth had a problem and he could adjust his label size to match what we had on the shelf.

In a few minutes we’d found a suitable label match so we started work on printing a sample barcode.  Gareth had sent us across an image of the barcode he needed.  Having worked with barcodes for more than twenty years we could tell at a glance what kind of barcode he needed.  The GS1 128 barcode is easy to recognise, but we weren’t going to take any chances.  Gareth already had a problem and we didn’t want to make another mistake by printing the wrong barcode.

We have a barcode terminal in our office we use for identifying barcodes.  One scan with that confirmed our expectations.  Gareth needed 600 GS1 128 barcodes.

In twenty minutes we had a sample designed on BarTender, our label design software and we printed it out on our Zebra ZM400 printer.  A quick photo showed Gareth exactly what he was going to get and we emailed it across for him to check and approve.

A short while later Gareth had checked with his bosses and the barcode was exactly what they needed.  How quickly could we get it done?  It’d be ready in 30 minutes.  That gave us time to test, print and rewind the roll of printed labels.

We set up the printer, loaded the core onto the rewind unit and began printing.

Job done.  Thanks Gareth for trusting us – and I’m glad it worked out for you!

I promised Sue I wouldn’t mention her company name when I wrote this, but I want to show you how neglected a barcode printer can be and still work.  Here are the consequences if you don’t get your barcode printer serviced, keep it clean or look after it!

I went to visit Sue and see how her printer is performing and couldn’t resist taking this photo.

This is a pretty powerful endorsement of just how durable Zebra printers are.

This Zebra S4M is seven years old and never been serviced (and I think it’s probably never been cleaned).  It’s been printing several thousand labels a week, without a problem.

You can see it is coated in a layer of dust inside and out and the printhead was thick with black label and ribbon residue.  The platen roller (if you don’t know what a platen roller is – there’s a picture below) was also cut (never use a knife to get labels out of your printer).

Three reasons why you need a regular barcode printer service

1. It will cost you more to replace the thermal printhead and platen roller.  Both will eventually wear out, but they can last twice as long if they’re looked after properly.
2. Your once beautiful barcode label printer will produce labels that won’t scan if you don’t service your printer.  Labels that can’t be read are a problem because your customers will get angry when they can’t scan them at the checkout.*
3. It’s very stressful.  Your barcode printer will stop working at the worst possible time – just when you need to print 10,000 labels.  You’ll be highly stressed telling your customer that their shipment can’t go out because you can’t print any labels.  You’ll be on the phone asking for an engineer to come out to fix your label printer right away and you won’t be having a good day.  A same day visit (if you can get one) will cost lots of money.

How to Avoid the Cost and Stress of Neglected Label Printers
If it’s been a while since you had your barcode printer serviced or even cleaned – you have a couple of choices – the dependable and the inexpensive options.

Dependable: book an engineer to come out and give your barcode label printer a service.  They will clean and check it and replace any parts that are worn or damaged.  See more here.

Inexpensive: buy some alcohol cleaning wipes (we sell COSHH compliant packs of pre-saturated alcohol cleaning wipes in sealed packets) and get the vacuum cleaner to work.

Vacuum your printer out and clean the printhead and platen roller with the wipes.

Print a test label and check it for quality – there shouldn’t be any white lines appearing in solid blocks of print.  If there are – it indicates your printhead is wearing out.

Take a close look at the platen roller and check it for cuts or wear.  There’s a picture of a platen roller below.   Contact us if you need any help and we’d be happy to advise.  To find out more about our printer support options see our printer support page here.  We have an easy to use guide to cleaning your  barcode label printer – see it here.

*You probably won’t even realise your labels are unreadable until you have ten thousand products in the shops all with bars missing from the barcodes.  Perhaps buying an entry level barcode scanner to test scan every day might be a worthwhile investment?

BarTender is our favourite label design software package.  Not only is the software powerful and reliable, the support we get from the software developers, Seagull Scientific, is quick and knowledgeable. As it’s 30 years old this year, I wanted to take this opportunity to celebrate BarTender’s birthday with some birthday presents.

BarTender first appeared thirty years ago in 1987 as BarTender for DOS (if you remember what DOS was), making it probably the oldest, most stable label design program.  in 1987 Seagull Scientific were making barcode scanners and their barcode design software was a sideline.  In 1993 they launched a Windows version of their label design software and saw, for the first time, that year BarTender sales overtook hardware sales, prompting them to concentrate solely on label design software.

In 1994 Seagull developed windows printer drivers for thermal label printers, and to this day, have been the best alternative (perhaps a better alternative) to the printer manufacturers’ own drivers.

1999 saw Seagull Scientific become an international company, opening a European office – followed by a Taipei office covering Asia Pacific and another in Tokyo.  Another step into the big leagues was establishing a relationship first with Oracle then with SAP – and enabling their top end label edition to work with enterprise level ERP software.

Over the thirty years BarTender has been in development it’s seen 11 major revisions – adding the ability to print onto RFID labels, the addition of ID card printing and a host of incremental improvements for ease of use and stability.  Over the years it’s won numerous awards from various industry groups and associations.

12 Reasons Why You’d Want to Look at BarTender

I’ve chosen just ten features from the hundreds that make BarTender so powerful.  BarTender comes in four editions – Basic, Professional, Automation and Enterprise Automation.  Whilst you can use all of these features with the trial version of the software, not all editions enable all these features.  Talk to us about what you’re wanting to achieve.

1. Connect your databases and spreadsheets directly to your labels – no need to key in product details into your labels.  Simply link your label to the database and select the products you want to print.
2. Use a data entry form to simplify label printing.  Design a form, fill in the fields and print your labels.  Users won’t need to delve into label designs in order to print.
3. Password protect your label designs.  Operators can still print, but they can’t accidentally change your carefully created label formats.
4. Keep track of who’s printed what labels with the detailed usage history.
5. Print directly from your iPhone, iPad or Android device with the BarTender Print Portal app.
6. Automate your label printing – automatically print address labels in response to customer orders arriving on your website.
7. Print from the cloud – use a web portal to print your labels.
8. Print ID cards and RFID embedded labels – use BarTender with your ID Card printer or Radio Frequency ID enabled printer.
9. Design labels quickly and easily – use the alignment tool to align text, or group objects together so you can move them around your label, rotate images, text and barcodes… I could continue.
10. Print onto round, oval or rectangular labels.
11. Reduce the number of label templates your organisation uses – massively. Using BarTender’s Intelligent Templates, large users of labels can organise their templates and reduce the number of templates used.
12. Integrate with ERP systems – BarTender has direct support for corporate ERP systems including SAP, Oracle and IBM WebSphere with BarTender’s easy to use Integration builder.

BarTender Birthday Presents

As with any birthday – let’s talk birthday presents.

We’ve got some useful presents to give away: 8GB USB memory sticks and Power Banks to give your flagging smartphone battery a new lease of life.

We’ll be giving these away to the first four readers from the UK who test for themselves the latest version of BarTender.

All you have to do is download a 30 day trial of BarTender and email me to let me know what you thought to it.  Download the 64 bit and 32 bit versions by clicking here.

Sorry but we’re only giving these gifts to UK based readers.