How to Choose correct Material

Direct Thermal Label Materials

Direct thermal materials comprise of a heat sensitive coating on paper or synthetic material, which when heated through a direct thermal printer, creates print by burning an image (text, images and barcodes) directly onto a label.

Thermal material for short term use, very limited resistance to marking or smudging and contact should be avoided with moisture, oil and fats.

• Labels

Direct thermal labels, ideal for short life retail and logistics applications and can be used to print price markdown labels, address, product, courier and postage labels.

• Card Tags

Thermal card tags with up to 250 micron thickness and are best suited for indoor applications with moderate temperatures. Ideal for use in packaging inserts, food trays, shop floor tracking tickets and pallet tags.

• Receipt Paper

Low cost receipt paper for short term use. Ideal for mobile receipt printing, delivery note printing and payment receipt printing. Long term storage and high temperature resistant receipt paper available for mobile delivery notes, service recording, electronic citations, parking fines and invoice printing applications.

Direct Thermal Top Coated

Offers a protective surface coat on one side ensuring the labels are more resistant to marking, are more resistant to fading in sunlight and are smudge-proof, solvent and grease resistant.

• Labels

Top coated direct thermal labels resistant to grease. Ideal applications include weight labels (meat packers, supermarkets), price marking labels (excellent print of EAN and UPC-codes) or frozen food labels with a freezer adhesive.

• Card Tags

Thermal card tags with up to 250 micron thickness and are best suited for applications that require some resistance against scratching and sunlight. Ideal for visitor identification tags, pallet tags, shop floor tracking tickets and shelf edge tags.

Thermal Transfer Label Materials

Semi Gloss Material

Also known as mid-gloss, this is possibly the most common thermal transfer material, being low cost, providing good print quality and looking good from a presentation point of view.

Ideal for use in environments where print needs to be longer lasting and may be exposed to direct sunlight. Typical applications include product identification, work in progress, shipping labels and pharmaceutical.

Matt White Label Material

The lowest cost label material, most popular types are uncoated papers (also known as litho or vellum) suitable for high volume printing. More expensive options, which provide a better print quality are smoother versions (calendared) and coated matt papers. The main disadvantage of matt uncoated papers is that they can mark easily.

Ideal for labelling of packaging boxes and pallets, product identification, picking and receiving.

Synthetic Label Materials