[sajesak]

We have a Brother PT-2430PC label printer that we use to print product labels. They are small (about 10 mm x 20 mm) and fairly water / heat / human resistant. The label maker has to be manually plugged into one of our Windows computers, information put into an Excel sheet (taken from a MySQL database on our FreeBSD server, then the program that came with the labeler is used to read the Excel sheet. I'd like to make this more streamlined. The problem is, Google searches only result in effort, and half-successes. I'd like to get this working on our server. Someone else here has suggested we just install our old version of Windows Server 2003 on an old desktop PC we have and be done with it. Please, please give me a better way that doesn't involve another server or Windows OS.

Some notes:

1. We need variable length labels, that's why we use the continuous feed type labeler.
2. We need it to do the printing and cutting from a template of some sort so that we can just send it the data from the database.
3. I want it to run from our FreeBSD server, not someone's laptop or another computer we put together to run Windows.

Wish list:

1. Print a small 2D barcode on there and have some way to read it back.

 

[sajesak]

We have a Brother PT-2430PC label printer that we use to print product labels. They are small (about 10 mm x 20 mm) and fairly water / heat / human resistant. The label maker has to be manually plugged into one of our Windows computers, information put into an Excel sheet (taken from a MySQL database on our FreeBSD server, then the program that came with the labeler is used to read the Excel sheet. I'd like to make this more streamlined. The problem is, Google searches only result in effort, and half-successes. I'd like to get this working on our server. Someone else here has suggested we just install our old version of Windows Server 2003 on an old desktop PC we have and be done with it. Please, please give me a better way that doesn't involve another server or Windows OS.

Some notes:

1. We need variable length labels, that's why we use the continuous feed type labeler.
2. We need it to do the printing and cutting from a template of some sort so that we can just send it the data from the database.
3. I want it to run from our FreeBSD server, not someone's laptop or another computer we put together to run Windows.

Wish list:

1. Print a small 2D barcode on there and have some way to read it back shipping label printer.

thanks for any help

 

[karstart]

One option is to use a CUPS driver for the Brother PT-2430PC label printer. This driver allows you to print labels from any application that supports CUPS, such as LibreOffice or GIMP. You can also use the ptouch-driver package to install the driver on FreeBSD. However, this option may not support variable length labels or automatic cutting.