Overview

Some online application printers from Markem-Imaje, Mectec, and Videojet handle printing a little bit differently with BarTender.

Instead of controlling printing through BarTender's print dialog menu (such as with the number of copies, serial numbers etc.) this is controlled directly by the physical printer. BarTender is only used to create the label design. 

Applicable to

Application printer drivers

Information

Difference in Print Functionality

• The BarTender document is downloaded via the Seagull driver to the printer when the user selects Print from the print dialog menu.
• After the label design is downloaded to the printer, printing is controlled independently from BarTender's print settings.
• Sending multiple pages from BarTender to the driver will only cause the first page to be downloaded onto the printer. Subsequent pages will be discarded. Instead, each database record needs to be loaded onto the printer individually.
• The concept of number of copies and serial numbers in the BarTender print dialog is not applicable to these types of printers.
• Printing will be controlled on the printer side based on some condition, such as an optical sensor included in the printer. Every time the sensor is triggered such as by a box passing down a conveyor belt, printing occurs.
• You can distinguish these printers easily by checking the driver properties and printing preferences. You will see options like this below for downloading jobs to the printer.

Creating a BarTender Document for These Printers

Setting up a BarTender document for these types of printers is easy since most of the printing is controlled by the printer.

Once you finish designing your label in BarTender, you will need to specify the quantity in the BarTender print dialog in a specific way:

1. Set the number of copies to 1: The number of prints is controlled by the printer itself. Specify more than one copy in BarTender will load multiple documents onto the printer since each page will be considered its own print job. 
2. Set serial numbers to 2 (In case serialization is set for the BarTender document): BarTender only enables printer serial optimization if the “serial numbers” field is greater than 1. 

3. Also from the Print dialog, go to Document Properties > Options > Jobs Selection Options... and uncheck the Don't reset batch count checkbox. Otherwise, serialization will not function correctly.

Serialization Considerations for Application Printers

 There are some other things to note about serialization with application printers:

1. Objects in a BarTender document that uses serialization must use printer fonts.
2. Open the Print dialog and select the Performance tab.
3. Under Performance Optimizations enable Allow Serialization.

4. For barcode objects that have serialized fields, go to Barcode Properties>Symbology and Size and select Print Method.

5. Change the Print Method to Barcode and human readable text controlled by the printer.

6. For most of these printers to communicate properly you will need to enable Bidirectional support. This can be done in Windows by navigating to Printers & scanners>[your printer]>Manage>Printer properties and checking Enable bidirectional support from the Ports tab.

Markem-Imaje and Multiple Printer Heads in a Printer

Markem-Imaje application printers are the only printers of this type to feature multiple printer heads.

Printing to multiple printer heads corresponds to the number of templates that you have in a BarTender document. Essentially, the first printer head will print Template 1, the second Template will print Template 2, and so on. If, for example, you are using a Markem 5200 (with two printer heads), Template 3 would print through printer head 1.