Body | Before You Make Print Position Adjustments:Causes of offset print can be varied and complex, sometimes there is no single magic bullet solution. Offset adjustments allow users to make minor adjustments to account for "tolerance" - potential mechanical inconsistencies that can occur from slight differences in the printer and media's manufacture or assembly, or from normal wear on the printer. If your text is being cut off or printing off of the label, there is likely some larger misconfiguration at play. Attempting to compensate with an offset will only compound issues. If you are new or inexperienced with using Brady THT printers, reference this knowledge base or your printer user manual to verify you have setup your printer and software correctly. We recommend referencing the general information article for your printer.1. Confirm the printer has been loaded correctly and the media sensors have been adjusted appropriately for the installed labels. Use this knowledge base to find loading and calibration instructions for your Brady printer model.
2. Identify the symptoms of the offset - does it drift gradually from label to label or is it consistent?
- Drifting text (label data lands in different places on multiple labels or skips labels) indicates the printer is not calibrated for your labels, or the label part used in the software file does not match the size and dimensions of what is loaded in the printer. Drifting text may also indicate adjustments were made to the print mechanism, depending on the printer model. Make sure the part number used in your software label file matches the labels installed in the printer. Then calibrate the labels correctly in the printer. If this does not fix the problem, continue on.
- Consistently offset text (print lands in same place on every label) can usually be fixed by making an adjustment. In this case you will want to go to step 3.
3. Start from Zero to ensure there isn't an offset someone already made in either the printer (onboard menu), the print driver or in the software, that is causing the offset. Sometimes one person makes an adjustment in one of those places for label they are working on, which affects all labels, and someone else makes an adjustment in a different area trying to fix the offset caused by the first offset entered.
- Go through each Print Position Adjustment Methods below and make sure there are no offsets in any of them. If there is, remove or change all offsets to zero. Now do a test print. This alone might fix the problem.
- If the print is still "off" - not landing where it should, but landing in the same place each time, make adjustments using Methods 1, 2 or 5.
Print Position AdjustmentsThere are 5 main methods to adjust print position. These are often used to resolve issues where text is cut off, too high, too low, too far to the right or too far to the left (text not landing where it should).
Method 1. Set print head X and Y offsets in the printer's LCD display menu. These offsets will apply to all labels loaded in the printer, These offsets will also be permanent - they will exist after the printer is power cycled (powered off and on again). Configuring X and Y offset values from the printer screen is useful in situations where one printer is consistently off across multiple label sizes; which is usually due to tolerance issues. This is the preferred method because it changes where the print starts and ends without reducing the printable area of the labels, which results in some data being cut off even though there is room for the complete objects where they are located.Method 2. Some of Brady's print drivers allow configuring offsets. Changes here usually change the offsets in the printer's menu (software overrides hardware). Like Method 1, offsets here will affect all labels loaded into the printer. These offsets will be semi permanent - meaning they will continue to exist after the printer and computer are powered off and on again. But they can be always be changed again. Note: the BBP16 series printers only sold in Asia need to have the X and Y offsets on the printer set at 0 for best results.Method 3. Make a temporary adjustment in the software at print time. Both Brady Workstation and LabelMark 6 offer offset adjustment settings in the Print menu. This can be used to quickly make a small and temporary adjustment that will only apply to that print job instance - this setting will not save after closing the software.
Method 4. Make a Printer-Part pairing adjustment. These configurations will automatically apply to a specific label and printer combination, new or existing. These settings are also semi-permanent - they will save after the software is closed and reopened, but can be manually changed in the Printer Part Pairing Adjustment. To find precise values, we recommend doing guess-and-check tests using method 3 listed above. Once the optimal setting found, take those values and apply them to a printer-part pairing.
Note: Making adjustments in the label software using methods 3 & 4 shown above involves shifting a "printable frame". These methods are intended for micro adjustments measured in millimeters. Larger adjustments will cause text to be "cut off" even within the expected printable area of the label: Text is Getting Cut Off Before the Label Margin. The size of the offset used to move the data in the correct place on the label is the same size removed from the printable area of the label. This is why offsets made in the software are not recommended unless the label be adjusted is not full (has plenty of blank space around the label) AND you only need to move the print a small amount on a small label, which will not noticably affect larger labels. And if you make the software adjustment using the "printer part pairing method", it won't affect other labels because that methed designates the adjustment to be made only if that specific label size/part is used and being sent to a specific printer. Method 5. Last option - Manually adjust the position of objects and text within your label file. Select all objects and move them vertically or horizontally so while the label on the PC screen may look off, the labels print correctly. This may be preferrable to spending a lot of time testing all the different adjustments to find those that work reliably. While the first two methods will cover most use cases, there are specific scenarios where this may be useful: Print offset (too high, low, left or right) When Printing from Brady Workstation With B30 Series Materials Still Not Working? Take a picture of your print quality issue and send the picture and your label file to your regional Brady Technical Supportdepartment for diagnosis: Global Brady Technical Support Contact Information See Also
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