SerialFlow builds every label job as a PDF whose page is exactly the size of the label, or of the Avery sheet, and opens your browser's print dialog over the page you are on. Nothing is scaled, fitted or rounded on the way to the printer, so a 4 by 2 label comes out at 4 by 2 and the bars in a barcode are the width the scanner expects. The one thing that can undo that is the print dialog itself, which is why this page exists.
Set these once per printer. Browsers remember them per printer, so you will rarely have to touch them again.
| setting | value | why |
|---|---|---|
| Scale | 100 percent, or Actual size | Anything else resizes the label and the barcode's bars with it. "Fit to page" and "Shrink to fit" are the settings that make a handheld scanner hesitate |
| Margins | None | The PDF already carries the label's own edges. A browser margin pushes the whole layout inward and clips the far side |
| Fit to page, Scale to fit, Print on both sides | Off | Same reason as scale. Two-sided printing on a thermal roll wastes a label per job |
Where they live:
If a label prints slightly too small, the scale is not 100. If the right or bottom edge is missing, a margin is on. Fix the setting rather than the template.
A thermal label is one page of the PDF. Zebra, Dymo and Rollo printers take the page size from the PDF, but the printer driver also carries its own media size, and the two must agree. Set the driver's label size to the template's size once, in the operating system's printer settings, and leave the print dialog's paper size on that.
The thermal sizes SerialFlow ships:
| size | typical use |
|---|---|
| 2.25 by 1.25 in (Dymo 30334) | bin and shelf labels |
| 3 by 1 in | unit labels with a barcode and a short line |
| 3 by 2 in (Dymo Medium) | unit labels with a QR code, condition and price |
| 4 by 2 in | box labels |
| 4 by 6 in | shipping labels and large box labels |
A template can also be any custom size. The printer then needs a matching media size in its driver, which is a one-time setup.
An Avery template lays every label of the job onto US Letter pages in the sheet's own grid, with the sheet's top and left margins already built into the page. Print it on plain paper first and hold it against a real sheet: if the grid lines up on plain paper it will line up on labels, and if it drifts the scale or the margin setting above is the cause.
The sheets SerialFlow ships:
| sheet | labels per sheet | label size |
|---|---|---|
| Avery 5160 | 30 | 2.625 by 1 in |
| Avery 5163 | 10 | 4 by 2 in |
| Avery 5167 | 80 | 1.75 by 0.5 in |
Feed the sheet the way the printer's tray shows. A sheet printed upside down puts label 1 where label 30 should be, which looks like a margin problem and is not.
If the dialog does not appear within a few seconds, the browser is still rendering the document. Wait rather than clicking again, because a second click starts a second job.
The Copies box in the print window prints each label that many times, and the labels are grouped by record rather than interleaved: three copies of two units prints unit A three times and then unit B three times, so a stack of labels for one device stays together.
Almost always a scale problem. A barcode whose bars are 90 percent of their intended width still looks fine to a person and does not to a scanner. Check that Scale is 100 percent and margins are None, then print one label and scan it before printing the batch.
Every job today goes through the browser's print dialog, which means one click on Print per job. A direct path to a Zebra printer through Zebra Browser Print, where a job goes to the printer with no dialog, is planned for after the beta. It is recorded in the release plan and is not in this version.