Types of Label Printers

Label printers are different than normal printers for home use. They are designed specifically to print over self adhesive material and also sometimes over card stock. The idea behind label printers is to provide accurate and fast printing for industries that need to label their packages for selling or shipping. There are basically to types of label printers in the market: direct thermal and thermal transfer printers.

Direct thermal printers use a technology designed to print short duration labels, like the ones used just for shipping purposes. Normally, information in these labels last from six to twelve months before fading away. Direct sunlight exposure can shorten the time even more. But this time normally is enough to handle shipping requirements properly, so are commonly used in the logistic industry.

Thermal transfer printers are designed to use heat to transfer ink onto the label, in a procedure engineered to last a long time. The idea is to make permanent labels. This procedure is reasonably more expensive than the direct thermal procedure, so label printers that employ this method are considerably more expensive than their counterparts. Machines that use thermal transfer technology are usually capable of deliver direct thermal labels too.

Sometimes, users need to print barcodes onto their labels. It is worth mentioning that not every printer on the market is capable of doing this, for a reason of market segmentation. Some customers want information over their labels but do not want to get into complications by handling barcode printing software or deal with a technology they don’t need at all and they don’t fully understand. That’s why label printers have a variety of features and the more features they have, the more expensive they are. The most advanced models are industrial printers, which are just large devices with the added value of having the capacity to work over large periods of time continuously and almost without human supervision.