FAQ
Poor print quality
Most cases of poor print quality, such as lack of sharpness or print color not solid or looks faded, are caused by one or more of the following reasons:
- Printer maintenance. Printer head needs to be cleaned with printer cleaning cards frequently and the label feed path needs to be kept clean of dust and any other residue.
- Printing speed. On many printers the printing speed can be adjusted. If the printer is well maintained and the print quality is still unsatisfactory, try reducing the printing speed.
- Printer age. If the printer has been used extensively, wear and tear of the moving parts can affect the print quality.
Printing fades
It can happen that the printing appears to fade after a while. The two most common causes for this are:
- Direct exposure to sunlight for longer periods
- Transparent adhesive tape or other adhesive membrane is placed over the printed label. The adhesive on such tape or membrane can interact with the coating on labels and make the print disappear
Labels go black (when used on food products)
Adhesive labels are commonly used on food products in catering business and similar. If regular thermo-active labels are exposed the radiation of a microwave oven, the entre label will turn black. For such applications, other types of labels need to be used.
Labels do not adhere well when stuck on to a surface
Our labels and adhesives are designed to adhere very well to most normally used surfaces, f.ex. cardboard shipping boxes.
If, however, they are used on certain specialty surfaces, they may not adhere well. Examples of such surfaces are:
- Oily surfaces
- Waxed surfaces
- Some plastic-coated surfaces
For such specialized needs, it is important to test various label types to make sure to use the appropriate type of labels and adhesives.
Label roll / sheets jam in the printer
This can happen in any printer and the most common causes and solutions are:
- Paper not fed in correctly – straight angle and with the correct side facing up, acc. to the printer used. This is easily solved by retracting the roll and then feeding it correctly.
- Adhesive or other residue on the label roll feed path (rollers, tracks). This can be more delicate to solve, depending on the printer model. If the problem occurs, please follow manufacturer cleaning instructions. You may also find helpful videos pertaining to your printer model on YouTube.
A4 label sheets not printing correctly
For labels on label sheets, the most common problems are:
- Paper type or template not set correctly in word processing program
- Margins are not set correctly in word processing program
When using A4 sheet labels, it is of course essential to use the software template that corresponds to the label sheets being used and to make sure margins not set for a different format.