When Transfer Calls
With higher quality, enhanced software and lower prices, suppliers see simplified selection and usage for thermal transfer printers.
By Susan Friedman
Converters in the market for a thermal transfer printer should first consider how others in the field have put them to work.
Thermal transfer printers' flexibility for on-demand, short runs has led some label converters to install them "as a service bureau capability," comments Gene Korzeniewski, manager, product development, Avery Dennison Printer Systems.
Short-run, variable information jobs remain an applications cornerstone. "Because of its high per-label cost, thermal transfer is not the best choice for high-volume batch printing," affirms Reggie Twigg, marketing communications specialist, Printronix.
It is the industrial nature of this variable information printing that has kept some converter usage at bay. Tom Pugh, VP, Bell-Mark, says converters will use thermal transfer printers to add sequential codes, date codes or other variable data on preprinted labels or packages for "niche-oriented reasons," but calls these instances "spotty situations."
Other thermal transfer printer functions, such as expiration date and lot number coding, are "not something converters would typically take advantage of," elaborates Joely Fanning, product manager, Markem Corp. She, instead, sees converters "as companies that supply preprinted film or cartons to the industries thermal transfer vendors serve."
Efforts to take thermal transfer printers beyond industrial markets should intensify in the next six to 12 months, says Ann Marie Cook, director of marketing, Weber Marking Systems. "Increased modularity and Windows 95 drivers should boost appeal in target markets, such as medical and pharmaceutical labels."
Buying criteria
Thermal transfer printer prices continue to fall, due to a more crowded marketplace and a focus on economy models. John Schuck, director of sales and marketing, Imtec, says a key cost-reduction driver is competition. "As more suppliers enter the thermal transfer market, the shifting demand and market forces will result in lower-cost printer alternatives for more simplified applications," he states, adding that lower prices have extended to multi-color stand-alone printers. "The only limitation is color matching," he adds.
But what, exactly, will your thermal transfer dollar buy? Korzeniewski explains low-capacity, light-duty printers can cost as little as $300, while continuous-cycle, heavy-duty printers can cost as much as $10,000. Other price points include throughput (speed plus image processing time), durability, ribbon supply capacity, print density, print width, and single- or multi-color printing capability. Higher-end features include expanded internal memory, cutter/stackers and label rewinders.
Printers with 300 dpi resolution currently provide the highest quality thermal transfer printing, notes Pugh. Near-edge technology, in which the printhead makes contact with the substrate at a 29 degree angle, facilitates faster speeds, he adds, while larger printheads can ensure greater label size flexibility.
Cook says most desktop industrial printers can print thermal and thermal transfer, but people don't usually buy them because they can do both. "Many may never access one of the print methods," she states.
Instead, the majority of users are selecting a printer based on throughput. "We don't talk about print speed in and of itself," Cook says, "because a fast speed might be moot if the printer takes 25 seconds to bitmap the image. This is critical for variable labels, which must be processed individually."
Designs to do more
Recent twists in the development of thermal transfer printers include more sophisticated software, quality controls and print capabilities.
On the software side, suppliers like Printronix now offer off-the-shelf, plug-and-play capabilities—printers with firmware chips already configured to handle the customer's software. WYSIWYG software packages make it easier to create customized labels on the fly, relates Twigg, while Windows drivers allow labels to be printed from common programs such as Microsoft's Word and Access.
Other software moves toward simplicity include multi-lingual programs and context-sensitive help functions that look at the user's place in the program to provide assistance, adds Korzeniewski.
To smooth operations on the bar code front, on-line verifiers can now be attached to the printer to flag and diagnose bar code defects, relates Twigg.
Basic print quality is expected to evolve in more ways than one. Cook predicts that in the next year, 400 dpi to 600 dpi resolution printers will let some users move away from preprinting portions of their labels, and provide the ability to print multiple languages, particularly non-Roman languages that demand higher resolution. She also believes more printers should be able to achieve speeds of 12 ips without the quality issues that currently hinder speeds in this range.
Applying knowledge
Suppliers say thermal transfer's print-and-apply segment is not of immediate interest to many converters, but it may impact how they supply preprinted work to customers who plan to add variable information via thermal transfer and then apply the label.
"Thermal transfer printer-applicators are creating a trend toward distributive printing, in which printing occurs exactly when and where it is needed—right on the manufacturing or distribution line," observes Korzeniewski.
Print-and-apply's in-house following could mean that end-users look to label converters for new areas of expertise. "As end-users move toward greater applicating automation, material specifications become more critical. Flaws such as die strikes, adhesive bleed and poor liner-to-facestock combinations become exponentially problematic when turning to automation," says Schuck.
