Seagull Windows Printer Drivers
Features and Benefits
Table of Contents
Topics covered on this page:
Superior Compatibility and Networkability
The power and convenience of its printer drivers is one of the biggest
advantages Windows has over other operating systems. With the right driver you
can talk to a printer from any Windows program you own. The drivers all
install the same way and provide a generally similar "look-and-feel" when you
need to change printer driver settings. Properly written Windows drivers also
integrate seamlessly with the networking capabilities of Windows. So you can
talk to printers anywhere on your network without having to leave your own
workstation.
Optimizing Thermal Label Printing Under Windows
Most thermal label printers have a variety of special features designed to give
you the best bar codes and fastest printing possible. Unfortunately, when
Microsoft created the standard for how Windows programs would talk to printer
drivers, they were more focused on the needs of page printers like lasers and
ink-jets. So, when you use a conventional Windows printer driver with a
standard Windows program to print to a thermal label printer, you typically
can't get access to certain features that optimize printing performance. These
features include printing bar codes built into the printer (instead of as
bitmaps), automatic serialization, and the storage and reuse of the parts of
your labels that don't change from label to label. To give BarTender access to
these and other printer features, Seagull designed its own Windows
drivers for use with the industry's most popular thermal label printers.
The Convenience of Windows and
Full Power of Your Label Printer
Our BarTender label printing software works with any printer that has a
true Windows printer driver available for it. But you get increased performance
on thermal label printers when you use BarTender with one of our own Windows
drivers. BarTender automatically recognizes when a Seagull printer driver is in
use and activates special functions in order to access the printer's
high-performance label printing features. And, because these are still 100%
Windows-compatible drivers, you can use them as you normally would with
standard software programs other than BarTender. (Unfortunately, it's just not
possible for these drivers to access the previously-mentioned high performance
thermal label printing features using programs other than BarTender.)
Designer Typefaces on Thermal Printers
Thermal printers are fast, but they come with relatively few built-in typefaces.
That can complicate your design job if you (or a customer) prefers to use one
or more special typefaces. Our Windows printer drivers bring the full power of
Windows TrueType fonts to your thermal printer. If you can see it in Windows,
then you can see it on your labels.
Supports Windows Graphics and
Printers' Built-in Bar Codes & Text
Seagull's printer drivers allow the printing of high resolution "raster"
graphics, so you can output a "picture" of just about anything. You can also
access all of your printer's built-in typefaces and many of the built-in
bar codes. (When used with BarTender, you can access all of the internal
bar codes.)
Extra High Speed Capabilities For Large Print Jobs
When using our drivers to print multiple identical labels using BarTender or any
other standard Windows program, only the first label gets sent to your
printer. We then configure the printer to automatically output the remaining
copies at the printer's full-rated speed. And even more optimization is
possible if you are using BarTender. If some parts of your label image are
constant while other parts are changing, only the changing parts get output
with each label. Outputting the minimum amount of data in this manner maximizes
the throughput of your high performance printer because it spends less time
waiting for data and more time printing.