While it may seem that Thermal Barcode Label Printers have been with us forever, barcode printers are continuing to evolve at providing more and more functionality at lower than ever prices. This has allowed barcode labels to be used in more and more applications with some common applications for thermal barcode label printing being Compliance Labeling, Shipping & Receiving, Product Identification, Pharmacy Labeling, Asset Tracking, Inventory Control and High Resolution Labeling.

Before reviewing some of the recent advances in barcode label printer technologies, let’s first review some of the key features of thermal barcode printers. These key features include the following barcode label printing criteria: 1) Print Technology for the Barcode Printer – specifically, direct thermal barcode label printers vs thermal transfer barcode label printers, 2) Printhead density of the barcode label printers with the most common being 200, 300 and 600 dpi, 3) Maximum Barcode Label Printing width with the most common widths being 2”, 4”, 6” and 8”, 4) Barcode Label Media Handling Accessories including rewinders, cutters and peel/present mechanisms, 5) Barcode Label Printer Interfaces including serial, parallel, USB, coaxial, Ethernet and wireless technologies.

One of the long-time workhorses for thermal barcode label printing in industrial-level applications has been the Zebra 110XiIII thermal barcode printer and it is often recognized as the flagship for industrial barcode label printing. This barcode printer has been around for many years with the Zebra 110Xi4 barcode label printer (introduced in Q3 2010) being the latest model. This barcode printer features increased barcode label print speeds of up to 14″/356 mm per second for increased batch and print/apply productivity, as well as a 4” print width and 200, 300 and 600dpi thermal printing options. As a comparison, typical industrial barcode label printers of a few years ago had print speeds of approximately 4-8 ips.

We also have seen newer versions of barcode label printing software including the latest from Seagull Scientific. Specifically, Seagull Scientific BarTender (v9.2) supports barcode label printing with Windows 7 as well as support for revision control and new print utilities.

The combination of the Zebra 110Xi4 barcode label printer coupled with Seagull Scientific barcode label printing software provides what we believe to be one of the top pairings of barcode printers with barcode label printing software. Additionally, this combination of Zebra barcode printers with Seagull Scientific barcode label printing software also has support for RFID technologies and can be readily upgraded to support the printing of RFID barcode labels for compliance applications, including DOD Mil-STd-129.