How To Choose The Right Barcode Printer For Your Business

When it comes to print barcode labels, after computers became an integral part of business, barcode labeling software is commonly used for barcode creation, and regular printers can handle the printing job, but there are also expressly designed printing devices that can handle barcode input and output.

Choosing a barcode printing should come along when planning your barcode system implementation for the first time, otherwise it can be selected at a later time, but keeping always in mind that barcode printers must match the symbology that your system needs since Codabar symbology, as in example, is different than the symbol used to produce UPC barcodes, although many barcode printers support multiple symbologies at a time.

Barcode printers are especially useful for those organizations that move large inventories and a must-have for industries because of the fastest impression if compared with standard computers printers. These types of devices also accept media rolls for continuous impression. Although there are different types of barcode printers that come in different sizes and pricing, they can only handle two printing methods, thermal transfer and direct thermal.

Thermal barcode printers can reproduce high quality barcodes opposite to standard printers, which worst quality would be obtained by printing barcodes with a dot-matrix printer. Nonetheless, even laser printers cannot print neat barcodes without the aid of special fonts or add-on components, but an average thermal printer produce a 203 DPI barcode that can be easily read by most barcode scanners.

Most thermal barcode printers have built-in PC connectivity so it is easy transfer code from a computer's barcode software to the printer using a USB or serial cable, although these devices can store between 128 and 512 KB RAM memory in average. Some of the most popular thermal printer manufacturers include Zebra, Sato, Symbol and Datamax, and Intermec.

Direct thermal printing uses a print head over a heat-sensitive ribbon, while thermal transfer is similar to other thermal transfers, but instead of images or photos, it transfers the barcode symbols onto a wide array of materials including traditional Avery labels, paper sheets, acetate sheets aluminum barcode labels, etc. Industrial thermal printers can usually switch between thermal transfer and direct thermal printing, which is faster but normally used for small printing batches.

It is important to keep your working environment in mind when choosing your barcode printer. If you own a small business that only need to print barcodes from time to time, you might only need a good quality laser printer or just a small portable thermal printer. Also it is important consider what your barcode is for, because if your business require security elements embedded into the barcode, then you might need a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) device instead.

Radio Frequency Identification technology is an automatic identification method that stores and retrieves information from RFID tags, which are small objects, with or without batteries, that send the self-contained information to a RFID scanners by radio waves so it is easier receive their signal even outside the reader's area.