It is a plastic foil that carries ink for thermal transfer label printing technology.

The standard length of the Ribbon, 74, 85, 91, 300, 360, 450 and depend on the type of printer.

For printers that use ink from the outside (OUT), standard widths are 38mm, 50mm, 60mm, 80mm, 90mm, 100 and 110mm.
For printers that use ink inside (IN), standard widths are 40mm, 55mm, 76mm, 83mm, 100mm and 110mm.

Standard color is black, while all others are ordered because they rarely deliver.

Some standard-sized labels used in our warehouse are (width x height): 30x18mm, 46x23mm, 50x33mm, 62x42mm, 100x50mm.

Price sticker is dependent on material preparation, size, glue, medium and ordered volume.

The distance between two labels is 3mm, which means that we must increase the labels hight when we calculate the ribbon lenght.
For example, the label dimension is 46x23mm, and for this dimension, use the ribbon 55mmx360mm

CALCULATION:
360 m (length of ribbon): 0.026 (height labels converted to meters and increased for spacing between the labels) labels = 13 846.15

Thermal printing technology is the one where the thermal printer head is in direct contact with thermal paper.

Small segments of the thermal print head heat up and leave an imprint on thermal paper.
Thermal paper isn't resistant to sun light and high temperatures, and print on paper has a relatively short lifetime.

Stability and quality of prints depends on the following factors:

- Proper selection of quality paper and ribbon;
- Speed and temperature of thermal print head;
- Selection of 200/300/600 dpi resolution thermal head

Bar code is always set in the direction of labels printing.Bar codes position is also important.You should also take care that there is always 2-3 mm gap between the edge of the bar code and the edge of the labels.

Certain combinations of colors and print media are suitable for printing code applications, while some other readers cannot read.
Most commonly used is white background with black printing.

The following combinations are also readable: green on white, green to red, blue to orange.

Looking through the red transparent film that mimics the scanner we can see if we can discern the contrast of two colors or not.Unreadable color combinations are yellow and white, green and black, orange and red.
For other combinations of colors and print media is best to consult with the relevant person or organization.

To create a label you can use two technologies: thermal and thermal transfer. Thermal technology uses labels that are thermo-sensitive (similar to fax paper) and passing beneath the thermal print head remains the same track as designed label. Such labels are not time-stable and are used in the products of shorter duration (up to several months in the food industry).Thermal Transfer technology uses ordinary or other special stickers or labels supplied with thermal foil whose content at the time of printing is printed on the label. Standard color is black thermo foil, but you can use other colors of a series offered by the supplier. These labels are stable and their stability is reflected in the temperature, humidity, aggressive liquids, or mechanical damage. Shelf life of these labels is several decades, and largely depends on the quality of glue.
Stickers come in rolls and if the printer is equipped with a rewinder, at the time of printing labels are rewinded and ready for installation on manual or automatic dispenser. Width and length of printed content on labels depends on the technical characteristics of the printer: the width of the head (usually 104 mm), amount of memory (up to several Mb).

Label quality is evaluated by the quality of paper, adhesive quality, quality of thermo foil (or better compliance between characteristic thermal film and paper), printing speed (up to 25 cm / s), temperature, printer, print head resolution (200 or 300 dpi), the optimal setting of printer parameters.

Printer should be chosen according to the amount of labels printed in a work shift, the required label size, print density, special requests (cutter, rewinder, sensors ...). See the table with a particular group printers.

Creasing of the ribbon in the process of printing appears when the wrong ribbon is chosen, of when the guidance system of traction rollers and tensioning system is not adjusted properly.

Too wide ribbon or ribbon that has a layer of ink on the opposite side of the recommended also can cause creasing.It very rarely happens when user regurarly maintaines the printer that service need to intervene on the ribbon control system.