Macintosh computer users face challenges printing production volume barcode labels from their Macs. Thermal barcode label printers are the printing technology of choice for printing barcode labels due to their ability to economically print dense and sharp edged bar codes, one label or thousands of labels at a time.
However thermal label printers have had an historical significant disadvantage.
- There was no standardized printer command language used for thermal printing communication and control, as different brands of printers use proprietary printer command languages created by each manufacturer.
- Thermal label printers were developed to run on PC platforms, not Macs. As a consequence, Mac users were relegated to the use of Mac compatible small desk top thermal label printers. These small printers were not an optimal solution for printing industrial production volumes of barcode labels.
- Alternatively, Mac users had to use a PC to print to an industrial barcode label printer.
Today there is a Mac-centric industrial barcode label printer solution, the IntelliBar Network Series printers. IntelliBar printers use genuine Mac OS X printer drivers that facilitate quick and easy integration into a Mac network without the installation and maintenance problems often encountered with other types of printers. Those days of struggling to integrate proprietary command language printers with clumsy workarounds and patches are gone. Because the IntelliBar printer is networked, it can be shared among many users, including PC users.