Label Properties editor selects the printer, sets label dimensions, and defines the printing paper properties.
The label properties settings are listed below and appear as dialog tabs:
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Label Property |
Description |
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Selects the preferred printer. |
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Defines the Unit of measure and label dimensions. |
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Defines the printing paper properties. |
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Selects the stock type. |
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Defines the label style parameters. |
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Defines details for grouped printing of labels. |
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Enables label roll cutting during or after the printing procedure. |
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Inserts the label description. |
Tip
To open the Label Properties Editor, double-click the design surface.
Printer tab lets you define the printer to print the labels on, and to set printing behavior.
Printer dropdown menu lets you select a printer from the currently available printers.
Tip
To set the printer settings, select a printer and click Printer properties. This button gives direct access to the selected printer's driver and its settings.
Note
For additional information on the installed printer drivers and their settings, read the Printer Drivers Installation Guide.
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Always use the default printer: select the default system printer to be used for the current print job.
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Double-sided printing: enables double-sided label printing.
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Use printer properties saved in: This setting allows you to define where NiceLabel 10 takes the printer settings from while printing. There are two options available:
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Printer Driver: When printing, NiceLabel 10 takes the printer properties that you define in the printer driver. This means that all labels that share these settings print equally. E.g., if you change printing darkness in the printer driver dialog to 10, all labels print with darkness set to 10.
This is the default setting. With this setting selected, the Printer properties button becomes disabled. Access your printer properties from Windows system dialogs.
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Label: When printing, NiceLabel 10 takes the printer properties that you save in the label. This means that the way how this label prints is independent from how you configure the printer driver. E.g., if you change the darkness for the label to 10, only this label prints with darkness set to 10.
Read more about how to manage printer settings in knowledge base article Defining default printer setting for all users (including network users).
Example 9. Example for settings saved in printer driver
The ribbon in your printer is ending its life period. As a result, the quality of printed labels is decreasing. To enhance the quality before you receive a new ribbon, you must temporarily increase the printing darkness for all labels at once. Configure darkness level in your printer driver and all your label print with increased darkness.
Example 10. Example for settings saved in label
If you are designing a label on a remote computer that currently does not have access to your designated label printer, you can still design your label, save the printer properties within your label, and take this label to the computer that can access your label printer. The saved printer settings make your label "portable".
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Use printer settings from the printer driver: select this option if you prefer printing using the printer driver settings.
Note
Specific printer models only allow you to set label dimensions using the printer driver dialog. Among these models are high resolution inkjet coding and marking systems. If you select such a printer model for your label, Desktop Designer automatically detects it and only allows you to take the label settings from the printer driver. Label dimension settings in the Label Properties dialog are disabled in this case too.
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Use custom printer settings saved in the label: each label may have its own printer settings defined and saved by the user. Select this option to use custom settings while printing.
Printing group of settings optimizes the printing process.
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Optimize printing of identical labels: if multiple identical labels are printed, the printer does not need to receive the label file each time. With this option enabled, the printer alone multiplies the print job.
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Use advanced printer driver interface: speeds up label printing.
Tip
When selected, the optimized printer commands are in use. Deselected option disables printing optimization. Each label is sent to the printer in form of an image.
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Combine non-printer elements into one graphic when sent to printer: merges multiple label objects into a single large graphic and sends it to a printer.
Tip
With disabled merging, Desktop Designer sends graphic items to a printer separately which might in rare occasions cause object positioning issues. Merged graphic items ensure correct rendering of the label. The downside of merging is increased amount of data which is sent to printer.
Use one of the below listed combination types to merge the graphics in the most suitable way.
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Combination type: defines which label objects are merged for printing.
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All non-printer elements: all label objects are merged into a single graphic item and sent to printer.
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All non-printer elements except counters: label objects are merged and sent to printer as a single item with an exception. Counters are sent separately within the same print stream.
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Only fixed non-printer elements: only label objects without variable content are merged into a single graphic file and sent to printer.
Tip
Non-printer elements are all items that are sent to printer as graphics. In opposite, internal printer elements are sent out as internal printer commands and rendered by the printer.
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Note
To exclude any label objects from combination, your object name or the name of the data source connected to your objects must include "DONOTCOMBINE":
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Use store/recall printing mode: optimizes printing performance. With store/recall mode activated, Desktop Designer does not need to resend the complete label data for each printout. Instead, default labels (templates) are stored in the printer memory and the Desktop Designer only sends recall commands to complete the label content during the printing process. For more information, read Store/Recall Printing Mode.
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Store variant: printer memory location to store the label templates.
Printer memory location: printer memory location to store the label templates.
Note
To make sure the stored label samples are not lost after power cycling the printer, store them at non-volatile locations. Read more about non-volatile memory here.
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Allow only printer elements to connect to variable data sources. If you connect your data sources to objects that are not marked as internal printer objects, Desktop Designer informs you with an error message and you also cannot print your label. This prevents variable data print errors in the store/recall printing mode.
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Prevent font replacement: In case of missing fonts for textual label objects, NiceLabel applications automatically find replacement fonts and print the labels using fonts that are similar to the missing ones.
There are two reasons for missing label fonts:
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The font is not installed on the system. This may happen if you design labels on one computer, and print labels on another computer that does not have these fonts installed.
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Font is not stored in printer memory. This may happen if you design labels for one printer, and print the labels using another printer that does not store these fonts.
Automatic font replacement can significantly change text layout and, as a consequence, the entire label design. If you want to prevent the printing of altered labels, enable the Prevent font replacement option. This option stops label printing if there is a need to replace the missing label fonts.
Prevent font replacement option stops printing if the labels are in print mode. This is when you are no longer editing labels in NiceLabel, but you are printing the labels using:
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NiceLabel Print application.
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Print label action in NiceLabel Automation configurations.
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Print label action in forms.
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NiceLabel Web Client.
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NiceLabel .NET API.
When designing and printing labels directly from NiceLabel 10 with Prevent font replacement option enabled:
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Printing continues if you print a label that you previously opened in Desktop Designer. Upon opening a label, Desktop Designer automatically replaces the missing font.
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Printing stops if you use printing form to change the current printer to a device that has no matching fonts installed.
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Label Dimensions tab specifies label dimensions and defines whether its size should adapt to the changing size of the objects or not.
Unit of measure defines the unit to be used while designing the label. There are four available units: cm, in, mm, and dot.
Label Dimensions group defines the label's Width and Height. Label dimension settings become active if manual label dimensions are enabled.
Note
When manually inserting the unit of measure, this also changes the currently defined Unit.
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The Processing order option sets Horizontally - start at top left to portrait orientation or Vertically - start at top left to landscape orientation.
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Horizontal gap and Vertical gap settings in Labels Across sections are set to 1mm.
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The Optimize vinyl usage option in the Printer tab is enabled (if your printer supports it).
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Vertical radius and Horizontal radius settings in the Radius section are set to 0.
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The Maximum length setting appears under the Automatic labels across option. This setting defines your maximum paper length.
Margins group sets the distance between the edge of the printing surface and the edge of the label (left/right, top/bottom).
Tip
Most laser and other non-thermal printers cannot print over the entire label surface. There is usually a non-printable label area of about 5 mm from the border of a page. In Desktop Designer, this area is marked by a red line. Any object on or beyond the red line is not printed entirely.
Radius group enables you to make the label corners rounded.
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Vertical radius: adjusts corner roundness value in the vertical direction.
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Horizontal radius: adjusts corner roundness value in the horizontal direction.
Labels Across defines the number of labels to be printed on a single label sheet.
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Horizontal count: number of labels in a row.
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Vertical count: number of labels in a column.
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Horizontal gap: horizontal distance between labels on a sheet.
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Vertical gap: vertical distance between labels on a sheet.
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Processing order: defines the direction in which labels are printed. Set the starting corner in which printing starts, and the horizontal/ vertical directions of label positioning.
Variable Label Size group enables the label size to change in accordance with the size of its objects.
When assigning additional data to label objects, their size increases and occupies more space. Therefore, the label height must adapt.
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Offset: distance between the last object on a label and the bottom edge of a label.
Paper tab sets printing paper properties.
Unit selects the Unit of measure to be used in a label.
Paper Type group defines paper dimensioning type – automatic or manual.
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Automatically set page size based on the label dimensions (labels on a roll): page size is defined by the printer driver.
Note
If a thermal printer is selected, this option is enabled by default.
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Manually set page size (sheets of paper): page size is set manually.
Note
If a regular office laser printer is selected in the previous wizard step, this option is enabled by default.
If the page size is defined manually, additional options appear:
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Paper: selection of standard paper formats.
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Width and Height: custom paper dimensions.
Orientation group sets the new label layout as Portrait or Landscape.
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Rotated: Printer Layout is rotated by 180 degrees.
Preview displays current label screen and print layouts.
Label stocks are a time-saving alternative to designing labels from scratch. Use stock templates when designing labels for a specific printer type and when optimizing the label designing process.
Stocks group defines which stock type should be used when designing and printing a label. Stock types are usually associated with printer vendors or stationery suppliers.
Note
Here defined stock properties override the manually set label properties.
Stock defines the exact stock to be used for label designing and printing. Stocks are sorted by vendors and media formats. Expand stock provider and select a specific stock type.
Tip
Use Search... to easily find the requested stock. A partial search is available – enter a sequence of characters and all stocks which contain that sequence will be listed. If the selected stock is not compatible with the selected printer, a warning appears. The previously selected stock becomes active again (if it was defined) allowing the printing to continue.
Note
If the selected stock is not compatible with the selected printer, a warning appears. Previously selected stock becomes active again (if it was defined) allowing the printing to continue.
Stock information displays the selected stock's properties:
Style tab is used for defining label style properties.
Background color: sets the color of label background.
Background picture: sets the label background picture.
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Picture file name: defines the image file to be used as background picture.
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Embed picture in a document: saves picture into the label file.
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Save embedded picture to file: the embedded label picture is saved to a separate file.
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Remove embedded picture: embedded picture is removed from the label file.
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Picture position: sets picture position on the label.
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Center: centers the picture on the label with its original dimensions. A picture larger than the label will display only the central part leaving the rest out of view.
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Fit: resizes the picture to fill the label while keeping the original aspect ratio.
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Stretch: stretches picture to make it fill the entire label.
Note
This option ignores the original aspect ratio of the picture. The picture might appear distorted on the label.
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Rotation: allows you to rotate the background picture in steps of 90 degrees.
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Print background picture: background picture is printed.
Batch printing allows grouped printing of labels that belong to the same batch.
Tip
A batch is a set of labels printed within a single print job. Each print job can consist of a single or multiple batches.
The first purpose of batch printing is to automate the execution of a predefined action after the batch has been printed.
The second purpose of batch printing is to enable header and tail label printing with each batch.
Example 12. Example
A batch of five labels starts with a header and ends with a tail label. Both of them differ from the main (body) labels.
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Enable batch printing: activates batch printing mode. Batch definition menu becomes active.
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Batch definition: specifies what a batch of labels should consist of:
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All labels in the print job: all labels in the current print job are assigned to the same batch.
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Batch ends after a specific number of labels: batch is finalized after a specified number of labels is printed.
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Batch ends when the data source changes value: changed value of the selected variable is used as a marker for opening a new batch.
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Actions group defines the action that executes after a batch has been printed. The availability of actions depends on the selected printer's driver. If the driver provides no information on the action availability, the list is empty.
Example 13. Example
Commonly used batch actions are Cutter, Pause printer, Batch mark, Batch separator, etc. With a defined web of labels (label template with labels next to each other), an applicable action also becomes Eject page. These printer commands can be applied dynamically during the printing process.
Header / Tail Labels group specifies the properties of header and tail labels in a batch.
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Use header label: header label of a batch.
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Action after header label: action to be taken after the header label has been printed. The selection of available actions depends on the selected printer's driver.
Note
The selection of available actions depends on the selected printer's driver.
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Use tail label: last label of a batch.
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Action after tail label: action to be taken after the tail label has been printed.
Note
The selection of available actions depends on the selected printer's driver.
Tip
Header, tail, and main (body) labels of a single batch are accessible via tabs that are located under the design surface (gray field).
Note
To enable label cutting, your selected printer must be equipped with a cutter.
Cutter enables automated label roll cutting during or after label printing.
Enable cutter activates label cutter and enables you to configure how to cut off labels.
Cutter mode specifies when to cut the label roll.
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Cut after the last printed label: cuts label roll after finishing print jobs.
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Cut after a specific number of labels: cuts label roll after printing the selected number of labels.
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Cut when the data source changes: cuts label roll when the selected data source value changes.
After you select Cut after a specific number of labels or Cut when the data source changes, additional options open up:
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Cut if condition is met: allows you to set a condition that tells the printer to cut labels. Use values from connected data sources to define under what condition do the labels start to print.
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Always cut after last printed label: tells the printer to cut off the roll after the last label in a print job.
NiceLabel 10 synchronizes Cutter settings with the currently selected printer. See section Synchronizing Cutter Settings with Printer for more details.