Create an account to edit articles | See Formatting Syntax for Wiki syntax | We look forward to your contribution!

Table of Contents

Printing Thermal UPS or FedEx Labels

Limitations in printing to a thermal printer

ProductCart does not “natively” print raw thermal labels due to the security risks involved with ActiveX. There are three options:

  1. Modify the page layout when printing from ProductCart
  2. Use QuickBooks (leveraging the QuickBooks integration with our shopping cart)
  3. Use another application or the FedEx or UPS Web site

Modifying the page layout

Overview

This section explains how to print full-size image labels on a thermal printer by modifying the page layout.

  • This is a workaround that addresses a limitation in ProductCart.
  • The technique used in this article is NOT certified by UPS or FedEx.
  • Image labels printed on a thermal do not produce the same high quality results as raw printing via ActiveX. However, it is much safer to print an image this way from your browser.
  • Early Impact does not provide technical support on thermal printing.

Page Setup

You need to change the way your browser is set to print a page in order to print to a thermal printer. In your browser, find the Page Setup tool. For example, in FireFox, select File > Page Setup. In Internet Explorer 7, select the File > Print Preview menu. Then…

Firefox Web Browser:

  1. Set the page margins to 0.
  2. Set the format to Landscape.
  3. You will need to use the setting Shrink to Fit Page Width.
  4. Remove all headers and footers from the page (set them to Blank).
  5. Print only page range 1 to 1. If you select All you may print an extra white page.

Internet Explorer 7 Web Browser:

  1. Set the format to Landscape.
  2. The size drop down should say Shrink to Fit. (Note: You can also select Custom at 40%.)
  3. Click the gear icon to enter printer setup.
  4. Remove all headers and footers from the page and set the margins to 0. (Note: IE may reset the margins and that is ok.)
  5. Print only page range 1 to 1. If you select All you may print an extra white page.

UPS Shipping Labels open in a page that contains printing instructions. Before you can print the label to your thermal printer you need to have the label open into its own browser window. Otherwise, the printing instructions will also be printed. In Firefox you can do so by right-clicking on the label and selecting View Image.

QuickBooks

ProductCart allows you to automatically transfer Web orders to QuickBooks through the ProductCart Synchronizer for Use with QuickBooks.

If you use QuickBooks with your ProductCart-powered store, then you have a built-in solution to printing labels to a thermal printer. That's because the QuickBooks Shipping Manager supports that feature. You can print both UPS and FedEx shipping labels using the QuickBooks Shipping Manager.

From the QuickBooks Web site:

Q: Can I use a thermal printer?
A: Starting with QuickBooks 2007 and POS 7.0, the QuickBooks Shipping Manager supports thermal printers. The official thermal printer supported by QuickBooks is the Zebra Model 2844.