02-21-2012, 11:20 AM

Hello

First, I was not sure if I should put this in the OS forum or the hardware . . . so I apologize if I picked the wrong category.

In short, I am running a MacBook Pro
Lion OS X 10.7.3

We needed a thermal printer to print shipping labels (which we also wanted to use to print 2" x 2" ingredient labels.). UPS offered us a free printer and so we were happy to receive the ZP 450.

It appears this printer is made specifically for UPS, although I can not officially confirm it. I can't seem to find any drivers for it to run on the Mac,

Now, UPS tech walked me through setting up the printer on my mac so that I can print the UPS labels directly from the ups internet site. That works fine.

They told me that YES, you can print other labels with this on the MAC (like the 2" ingredient labels we want to use) . . however they could not support that and could not tell me how to go about it.

I currently use Open Office for MAc . . and so I tried opening that and creating a label and printing it to the newly added Zebra printer. It prints . . but all I get are blanks.

I have spent the last 3 days searching online for information . . and getting nowhere. Has anyone done something similar? I just want to print labels from another source than UPS website. Like Pages, or Open Office . . . or something . . anything.

I don't want to go out and buy another printer, or use a laser printer and use up all the ink printing labels.

Any suggestions? (laymen's terms please . . hardware/software is not my forte)

Thank you!!

02-21-2012, 02:47 PM

Moved here to the correct forum.

The printer which you obtained from UPS is likely proprietary and can only be used from their web site. Without drivers for your Mac you're going to have a difficult time trying to get it to work (if ever) for other uses.

I'm wondering why you don't want to use a laser printer? I'm using an HP LaserJet to do our labels and it doesn't use any more toner than regular printing. It's much more efficient than an inkjet printer which does use lots of ink.

02-21-2012, 02:58 PM

Cshcag

I kinda figured that the printer UPS sent was proprietary . . although when I (in advance) told them my plans to use it for product/ingredient labels, they did not object. Simply told me that it COULD be done, but they could not support THAT nor give me instructions for how to do it.

The reason that we wanted to use a Thermal printer rather than a Laser printer was for cost over time. Thermal printers use heat, not ink and therefore you do not need to keep replacing the ink (as we will be printing ingredient labels by the thousands each month).

Certainly we could order pre-printed stickers but you need to order huge amounts to get a decent price, and when we consider that we have 30 some flavors . . the cost of pre-printed labels gets a bit insane.

The other reason for wanting to use a Thermal printer is because they use "roll labels" and not form labels such as the Avery ones. Roll labels can be much cheaper to purchase than the form ones.

Other than that, I agree that Laser printers could do the job just as well.


Perhaps I need to refocus my time in finding cheaper solutions in bulk form labels, and a laser jet printer.

Any recommendations on the model?

02-21-2012, 03:19 PM

You're correct about thermal printing being less costly over time. The amount of labels we print are small in comparison to what your needs are.

With that amount of labels to be printed, even a fast laser printer with single stacked label sheets is going to be slow compared to using label rolls and certain to cost more. I really don't know what to tell you except if you can find a good thermal printer that will work with the Mac.

Another option might be to install Windows on your Mac. It's possible you may be able to get the UPS printer to work from Windows, however, again that depends on whether there are drivers available.

02-21-2012, 04:04 PM

Originally Posted by chscag

Another option might be to install Windows on your Mac. It's possible you may be able to get the UPS printer to work from Windows, however, again that depends on whether there are drivers available.

If only life were simple haha. That was my original intent. We were negotiating with a few of the big shipping companies . . mentioned that we were going out to purchase a thermal printer for our shipping and product label needs . . UPS offered up a free one . . and said that we could print our labels, but they could not offer support for that part.

Long story . . . 2.5 years ago, we purchased our MacBookPro. I partitioned it with bootcamp and installed Windows Vista. Over the years, we upgraded to SnowLeopard and now Lion. Not knowing, bootcamp would no longer support Vista.

Had problems installing the UPS software on our Windows partition .. and so I thought it might help if I wiped out the Vista and then re-partitioned with bootcamp and re-installed Vista. WRONG. After I wiped out our Windows partition . . only then did I learn that bootcamp will now only install Windows 7. Yipeee for me!

I was not going to run out and buy Windows 7, when I water money on Vista 2 years ago and now it was worthless.

So, that is where we are now Hating windows and hating Zebra because they do not offer drivers for Mac.

But I agree . . . we may need to find a thermal label printer for mac and cut our loss.

Thanks for your suggestions!

02-21-2012, 11:14 PM

You should look here 4 x 3 Rectangle Labels - CUSTOM PRINTEDUSUALLY SHIPS WITHIN 24-48 HRS

Some of the Zebra printers have to low dpi for product labels...you need like the printer used in a bakery dept etc.

02-22-2012, 06:36 AM

Originally Posted by Mac SK

You should look here 4 x 3 Rectangle Labels - CUSTOM PRINTEDUSUALLY SHIPS WITHIN 24-48 HRS

Some of the Zebra printers have to low dpi for product labels...you need like the printer used in a bakery dept etc.

Thank you for the suggestion. I took a look at it. Their pricing is a minimum of $0.60 per label. Considering that we buy thermal labels for less than $0.02 per label, and thermal printers do not need ink (and can spit out over 70 labels per minute) . . it is a general savings of $0.58 per label.

Although it was a good idea to order pre printed labels (and we would LOVE to do that). The cost difference is over $10,000 / year. From a business stand point . . we need to keep looking at Thermals.

I did, find a Dymo Twin Turbo for about $200.00 Prints over 100 labels per minute so we can just drop a roll in and let it run the roll out. The labels we can get for about $0.01 per label, which would be much more cost efficient. I know some thermal labels tend to fade over time, but our products have a shelf life of 9 days . . so this should be ok.

Thanks guys for your help and suggestions.

02-22-2012, 10:40 AM

Originally Posted by KuyaRomeo

They told me that YES, you can print other labels with this on the MAC (like the 2" ingredient labels we want to use) . . however they could not support that and could not tell me how to go about it.

I currently use Open Office for MAc . . and so I tried opening that and creating a label and printing it to the newly added Zebra printer. It prints . . but all I get are blanks.

The Zebra web site for "unix and CUPS" printers drivers says the driver is included in OS X and is a generic ZPL (Zebra Printer Language) driver that covers many label printers, including the ZP 450.

Is this what you used when you added (+) the printer in print & scan/print & fax?

02-22-2012, 11:53 PM

I have a Brother QL-570 does 68 labels a minute at 600 dpi. I did a cosmetic product at one time and there are rules and regulations about label size, print quality and type size. Sounds like your doing a food product there may be similar regulations. Good luck to you.