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Question

Need a printer to print a select # then stop/start again

by Feb 26, 2014 1:01AM PST

I supervise a shipping department that ships anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000 plus packages a day through UPS's proprietary software Worldship. We apply adhesive shipping labels onto bag mailers containing dietary pills or to cardboard boxes containing skin care products. We use Brother ZM400 label printers to accomplish this.

I need a way either through software or hardware to be able to print a set amount of labels at a time- most likely 100. This is in order to monitor work rates of separate individuals who received equal workloads of labels- so sometimes the number might be 80, others it might need to be 150. Is there anyway to set this up easily or a software that accomplishes tasks like this?

With Worldship,, we print out a daily export file of orders from excel, and printing only a select portion of said file is simply not a solution due to efficiency concerns and time constraints. Can this be accomplished through the Brother printer? Because in my eyes the simplest solution would be if the printer could simply keep track of how many tickets it has printed at any given moment- a worker could collect that stack of 100- and then the printer could continue with the next stack of 100 labels perhaps after a continue/pause button was pressed.

As is, we have to have people count out through large stacks of tickets and divvy them out in equal amounts. This is no longer an option.

I sincerely appreciate any help.

Discussion is locked

4 Posts
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Answer
Small world.
by Forum moderator Feb 26, 2014 1:14AM PST

I've seen this request before and well I'm not telling the entire story here. A friend that does custom software had such a request. The client never went forward on the project but it was possible. You might be thinking this is already developed so I'll share that I haven't seen it yet.

The proposed system was to make a custom app to deliver this along with more printers. The total cost was just above the 5 figure mark so they decided to stick with what they were using. They did add a second printer to help out.

While printers are getting better, applications in printers is still rare today.

Sorry but all I can do is nod and answer it looks like a programmer needs to get in there.
Bob

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Answer
What does your vendor offer?
by Feb 26, 2014 2:21AM PST

Offhand, when I did a quick search for your Brother the Zebra cam-up as pop-up too. I suspect if this is a rebadged Zebra or vica-versa then use the Zebra s/w. It should be compatible to your setup, but that's WAG on my part. It certainly looks the same and should be swappable among the printers. Zebra is the premier label printer and offers alot of options or fixes as the case maybe. I suggest you look at both and see if you can get the product or s/w at least and go from there. You maybe already using the s/w as the case maybe regardless. In your case, it the option isn't there to print then you need to step to your support vendor to see what if any options they may provide. If there's a sale involved they may step-up and offer the clues you need to resolve your issue. Either that or have a 2nd printer to dump the print jobs that much quicker and/or be more optionable one do a different task while the other does something else.

tada -----Willy Happy

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My mistake
by DirectOutbound Feb 26, 2014 2:33AM PST

Thats my fault. The printers are actual Zebra printers, not Brother printers.

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That's my buddy's favorite.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Feb 26, 2014 3:20AM PST

Workhorse printers.

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