Barcode Label Solutions Blog

As a Mac aficionado, you probably know that Mac Lion (Mac OS X Lion to give it its full name, or Mac OS X version 7) was released in 2011 as the successor to Mac OS X Snow Leopard (version 6). The names are pretty enough, but this kind of release is a headache for some users using the Mac platform as a base for applications and peripherals. Why? Because Mac Lion is not backwards compatible with its predecessor – Apple dropped support for a number of functions or programs. So what’s the situation for people wanting to use a label maker for Mac Lion, for example?

If you can run a business using Mac OS X, shouldn’t you also have the same power to do the printing you need – especially label printing for things like for product and distribution barcodes? It sounds reasonable, but things haven’t always been that simple. In the past, unless the printer you wanted to use had a specific Mac OS printer driver available, you had to grit your teeth and do your printing via a PC. For specific types of printing such as barcode label printing, OS X label printers that did work out of the box tended to be small desk top printers only.

Since 2012, the IntelliTech International barcoding blog is to give our readers useful advice on getting the most out of their barcoding technology. We’ve covered a wide variety of topics, from very specific to broader overviews. Some of our most popular blog posts have been about technology. Since our readers are looking for answers, we thought we’d give you a quick recap.

The different uses of barcode label solutions continue to grow and grow. 

So what makes a thermal transfer printer for Mac such a good idea? Assuming that your requirement is to print out adhesive labels for barcoding or similar, it’s bound to be a smarter choice than trying to use an office printer. After all, who wants to have adhesive bleeding into a laser printer mechanism, ink jet smears on the facestock or barcode labels that become rapidly unreadable once they’re printed and out there in the real world? Thermal printing scores a big advantage over laser printing in particular, because the high temperatures of lasers can melt the label adhesive. In addition, there are the IT acrobatics necessary to print individual labels from an office printer without wastage and the labor-intensive process for trying to print onto special media. It doesn’t take much to see that for anything other than standard cut sheet printing office printers are an unhappy choice, and that thermal printing is the way to go.

Food recalls have become an all-too-common occurrence, increasing 400 percent between 2007 and 2009. The dramatic rise in food contamination created a global need for food traceability that can be managed with a solution that consists of barcoding software and printers for food labels.

Mac OS X already benefits from strong presence in industries such as design and publishing, with a solid reputation for flexibility, quality and performance. The latest OS X Server software from Apple gives even more Macs the power to act as servers, extending their use to enterprise-wide IT applications and fueling the growth of a company. As supply chains and logistics also expand, so does the need to print labels – product labels, shipping labels, barcode labels, you name it! However, if you want to print labels from OS X, you’ll still want to make sure you use a convenient and cost-effective solution.

What’s for dinner? If you’re having fish, it might not be the type you expected—or even paid for.