Online Labels Forum

You have selected "Actual Size" so your page scaling should be fine. The Auto Rotate & Center option shouldn't matter in this situation. I reviewed your design in your Maestro Label Designer account (OL875), and I am not seeing a background color on your design. It may be that you removed it to get your design to print correctly.

If you are within 1/16" of inch, I think it would be best to add a bleed to your design rather than focus on getting the alignment perfect.
When adding a background color, it is critical that you add a bleed over the edge of the label. You can learn a little about bleed at the link below. The article below also explains how to add bleed to your background color using Maestro Label Designer.

http://www.onlinelabels.com/Support/Maestro/AlignmentGuide/Printer-Bleed.aspx

The only issue you may run into when adding a background color or bleed on our product OL875 (2.625" x 1" labels) is related to the fact that left / right margin on the sheet is 0.21975". Some printers can't print that close to the edge of the sheet. You can use our tool at the link below to check your printer's unprintable margin.

http://www.onlinelabels.com/printermargins.htm

I am happy to do some print tests of your design on our end. I would need you to add your background and save the design so we can review it on our end. Let us know if you would like to do that.

Thanks.

Dave C.

I have reviewed your design. You definitely need to add a 1/8" bleed to the labels. I mentioned above how to enable this feature.

In regards to the alignment, based on your image it looks like your printer is printing about 0.125" too high and about 0.125" too far to the left. I recommend that we add 0.125" to the left margin and the top margin. To do this, please go to the Page Setup button in the header of Maestro Label Designer (the page set up button is next to the Print button).

Make the following changes:

Left margin from 0.2198 to 0.3448
Top margin from 0.5" to 0.625"
Bleed from 0 to 0.125"

If you make the changes above it should correct the issue.

Adding the bleed will cause the background color to bleed over onto the labels that are above and below the label that you are printing. Assuming you are printing this label multiple times on the sheet this shouldn't matter (since it is the same color).

I did notice that you are only laying out one label on the page on the page. Are you intending to copy that design to all the labels on the sheet?

Let me know how it goes once you make these adjustments.

Thanks.

Dave C.

0.29" may be fine. I was trying to error to the side of pushing your design farther right since your design had plenty of space on the right.

Keep us updated. Thanks.

Dave C.

Dan - I am confused why the artwork would get scrunched up. The bleed should just spread the background color beyond the edge of the label. It should not have any impact on the artwork in the center of the label.

Can you post a picture of what you are getting?

Thanks.

Dave C.

That issue you are seeing is being caused by the fact that bleed is enabled but you only set up 1 label on the sheet. When you go ahead and step-up the design onto multiple labels on the sheet (recommend that you add the design onto all labels on the sheet), the background colors will bleed into each other and this would not be noticeable.

Without focusing on the background color - is the logo, text, and graphics now printing in the correct spot when you print onto a test page?

Due to the background color / bleed, printing a sheet with just one label is not an option that is going to work with this configuration since the labels touch each other vertically. If you want to print just a couple of labels on the sheet at a time using a background color, I would recommend that you go to full sheet mode in Maestro Label Designer. This will allow you to manually create the bleed by adding creating a box shape in the color of the background rather than using our background color feature. You can create a box (using the shape tool) that is slightly bigger than the background the label and then Send to Back using the arrange tool. I have attached some images of this being done in Full Sheet Mode.

I have gone ahead and saved a design on your account that shows you this functionality (design is named splat_full_sheet_mode_sample). I highly recommend against this option as you will end wasting labels due to having to bleed onto all the labels around the label that you are trying to print. In addition, it is not a recommended practice to run the label sheets through the printer multiple times. There are customers that do this, but it is not recommended as it can potentially damage your laser or inkjet printer.

I am happy to continue troubleshooting the issue. Thanks.

Dave C.