Online Labels Forum

I'm sorry to hear about the issues that you've experienced with the clear gloss laser label material. Due to frequent complaints related to curling, jamming, and static cling we opted to make a change to the backing of the material a couple of years ago. The facestock and adhesive remained identical to the previous product, but we worked with our supplier to develop a backing that would ensure that the labels lay flat and are less susceptible to the effects of electrostatic discharge produced by laser printers. We do not take any changes to our label materials lightly - the revised material was tested extensively across a variety of different laser printer models and presses:

HP Color LaserJet Pro M252dw
HP Color LaserJet Pro M452dn
Brother HL3170CDW
Brother MFC-9130CW
Brother HL-L2360DW
OKI C711
Xerox Versant 80 Press
Xerox 700 Digital Color Press

We experienced excellent printing results when using the laser printers that we have available for testing. The testing was completed using a variety of material type and quality settings, and sheets were printed in various job sizes from both drawer trays and manual feed trays.

To achieve the best results you'll likely need to change the material type setting within whichever printer model you wind up using. I typically had the best results using Photo/Glossy material type settings, but also had very positive experiences using other settings such as Heavy Paper, Thick Paper, Labels, and Transparencies. Some trial and error may be necessary to ensure you're using the optimal material type setting, but we've found that the heavier paper type settings typically slow down the feed and provide better printing results.

I hope this helps. If you need any further information or assistance please just let us know.

Every printer model is capable of producing some small amount of shifting as sheets pass through, especially thicker sheets like label materials. The extent to which shifting occurs can vary from printer to printer, and has a tendency to appear more pronounced on smaller label sizes. OL3008CL features 0.75" square labels without vertical spacing between the labels - even a tiny amount of vertical drift may be noticeable on a label that small.

There are a number of precautions that can be taken to make sure your labels are aligned properly while taking into account any drift that may occur during the printing process:

- Make sure you're working with an optimal label design. This typically involves leaving a "safe zone" of 0.125" of blank space between your design and the edges of the label. If your design is too close to the edges of the label then even a very slight shift may be quite noticeable.

- Make sure the pickup rollers on your printer are clean. If your printer has the option of running a cleaning cycle, doing so may result in a more reliable feed through the printer.

- Print using the optimal material type and tray settings. This can vary from printer to printer. For example, I've found when using the Brother MFC-9130CDW that I achieve my most consistent results when using the drawer tray and the Glossy material type setting. Manual feed may work better for other printer models. Some trial and error may be required to really dial in the most consistent set of options.

With all of that being said, I spent some time this afternoon testing the OL3008 template across a variety of material types with the Brother MFC-9130CDW printer model. I wanted to make sure that the Maestro Label Designer template was working correctly in general, and that the template was also behaving properly when used with different types of label materials.

As mentioned above, after some trial and error I landed on the Glossy paper type setting with the sheets loaded in the drawer tray. I tried the Thick Paper and Thicker Paper settings from the drawer tray, as well as the Label paper type setting with the manual feed tray. All of these options provided usable results, but I did find that my most consistent printing results were with the Glossy paper setting.

When printing the OL3008CL using these settings there was a difference of approximately 1/32" of an inch in vertical placement between the top row of labels and the bottom row of labels. It was difficult to even tell there was a difference without using my micrometer to measure. Removed from the page, the labels appeared to be properly aligned - whether they were removed from the top row or the bottom row.

I didn't have any of the previous version of the OL3008CL available for testing, but I did try printing the same design on a few other material types to see if results were similar. I completed similar print tests on Standard White Matte and Gold Foil label materials, as well as plain copy paper. Regardless of material type I experienced similar results - roughly 1/32" of vertical drift when comparing the top row of labels to the bottom row of labels.

In the end I was unable to completely eliminate the printer drift, although 1/32" is within our expected range of outcomes when it comes to label sheets potentially shifting during the printing process.

I hope this information helps. If you need any further assistance please feel free to submit a support ticket at the link below:

https://secure.onlinelabels.com/Support/SupportRequest.aspx

We'll be more than happy to assist however we can.

One possible solution to the drifting issue would be to use the "Multi Design" functionality within Maestro Label Designer. If you're noticing that the last few rows on your design are drifting a little further down than you'd like but you're happy with the alignment on the rest of the sheet, you can use "Multi Design" to manage alignment on these rows independently from the rest of the template.

By clicking on the "Multi Design" tab and then clicking on the "Add New Design" button you can manually select the bottom few rows of the template and design them separately from the remainder of the template. This would allow you to manually adjust alignment on the bottom rows only, while leaving the default alignment in place everywhere else. Some trial and error may be necessary to get the alignment just right, but it could help resolve the issue that you're experiencing once you dial the adjustments in correctly based on the printer model that you're currently using.

I've passed the feedback from this thread on to the software development team in hopes that they can implement additional functionality for these types of alignment issues in the future.