Being the tech support guy for Color Label Solutions, I was
recently asked to assist a company that had created their labels in Microsoft
Word.
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| Word Created Label |
To me it was actually amazing what a good job someone had
done with creating their labels using this application. I was humbled with their expertise. Every label looked professional. But there was one important question that was
not considered during their decision to use MS Word as their design tool for
labels: Will They Print?
"Can you help us?" The manager asked, after realizing that he
could not print any of his MS Word labels to a label printer. (See
just how much we care about our customers at the end of this article).
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| Word With Error |
When starting this project, I had no idea about how to print
labels designed in MS Word. Their labels
had large margins around all four sides.
If I tried to alter MS Word’s page settings to make the content fit the label
media correctly, the label content would reflow on the page and become
unusable.
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| Poor Word Label Design |
In addition, the customer wanted to be able to type in lot
numbers on their labels as they printed them.
In MS Word format their labels were effectively
unprintable. Wow, what am I to do about
this problem? As Bones would have said, “I'm
a doctor Jim, not a magician!”
So I set to work to find a solution to this problem. I processed a label through several
applications to determine a workflow that would convert the MS Word label files
into a printable format. After a few solid
hours of work, I figured out the steps that would allow me to convert labels
created in MS Word into form-fillable labels that would print in a variety of
sizes!
The moral of the story here is something that I learned
years ago:
Use The Right Tool for the Job!
Having the right tool for the job will save you time and money,
not to mention frustration. Don't use a
text editor to create your labels!
So to the heart of why I am writing this blog entry.
I wish to let you know that there are several
great label design applications available to you. Some designed to be very user friendly that
come with predesigned label templates. For
example, there’s Simple GHS. Simple GHS
makes it easy to input your data and print labels for your chemicals. Learn more here: http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2015/05/simple-ghs.html
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| Simple GHS |
Other
applications like BarTender offer easy ways to integrate into databases. http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2014/09/ghs-drum-label-template-database.html
And some will provide advanced features for integrating into
ERP software such as SAP.
My job at Color Label Solutions is not to sell, but rather to
help our customers, and to even help those of you who are not our
customers. Not yet at least! We believe in Karma!
If you currently have a need to print labels,
but don't have an optimized printing solution at this time, I encourage you to
contact us.
But please, don’t ever create labels in a text editor such
as Microsoft Word.
Tim
Color Label
Solutions: Who we are:
We at Color Label
Solutions are dedicated to assist you with the purchase and deployment of
label printing equipment, label design and printing software, as well as
complete label printing systems. We’ll assist
you with installing the correct version of the printer driver onto your
computer, show you how to add page sizes, and review the basics of how to print
labels; so that you understand how your printing system works.
Our goal at Color Label Solutions is to make your path to
label printing easy, and keep it that way!
Rather than you researching just what you need to buy,
and then hoping that you didn’t just make a huge mistake, you can relax and rely
on our years of experience to help you through the complete process. Not only will we work closely with you to select the printer hardware and label software that’s the right fit for your
needs and budget, we will also spend quality time with you to set up your label system and get you printing.
We go above and beyond to provide our customers with comprehensive
service. Once you become a Color Label Solutions customer, you may contact us by
phone or email if you need any of the following:
* Customer service for consumables such as labels and ink, or hardware
such as additional printers.
* Technical support for your label printing system.
* Graphic design for creating custom labels that meet your needs.
We invite you to become our customer.
Best regards,
Tim
Color Label Solutions Tech Support
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