There are a few options for printing product barcode labels. The right one for the job will depend on the number of products you would like to print labels for and the number of labels per product.
Printing Barcodes for a Single Product
Printing a Single Barcode for Many Products or All products
Printing a specified number of barcode labels for many products
Printing Product barcodes from an order
Printing Barcodes for a Single Product
If you are going to print any number of labels for a single product the fastest method is to select that product in the products list and choose "Print product barcode labels" from the Edit dropdown just above the list.
This will generate a 3"x1" pdf of the barcode label and open it in a new tab. If nothing happens please check GroovePacker has permission to open new tabs/popups in your browser.
If there is a "blocked popup" icon in your URL bar you may need to click it to enable pop ups for your GroovePacker domain.
Click the print icon or use ctrl-P (command -P on mac) to print the label. You can adjust the print quantity in your browsers print dialog to print the required number of labels. (more info on printing at the bottom of this article)
Any barcode value in GroovePacker can be also printed as a barcode right from the product page. Open the product page by clicking the product name in the products list. You'll also find a handy link in the inventory receiving page.
If there are multiple barcodes saved for the product the first in the list will be printed. To print another barcode simply drag and drop it so it appears first. The first barcode is considered your "primary" barcode which is the one displayed in other areas of the app.
Printing a Single Barcode for Many Products or All products
You'll just need to go to your active products list and click on the select all button. You can then use the print barcode option in the edit dropdown as mentioned before.
You can also find a sub-set of items rather than all items by searching for something that is part of all of the products you would like to print The category, product name, SKU, and barcode fields can all be used. Once you have your search result you can click "select all" and then select the print option.
Depending on the number of items selected the pdf file that is generated can become quite large and take a long time to generate. If you find that the PDF is not created as expected try selecting fewer products and generate the labels in smaller groups.
Printing a specified number of barcode labels for many products
GroovePacker uses a "Print Order" to choose which products to print labels for and how many labels per product. Any order in GroovePacker can have labels printed for all of it's items (one label per piece) but normally a new order is created for this purpose.
There are two methods for creating a print order. The first is faster for a few groups of items and is done in the GroovePacker interface, the latter is faster for many groups and uses a CSV.
Method 1 - Ideal for printing labels for multiple products by category or style
In your online store, create a new order. This can be done using the Create option in the orders list.
Use the Add item option to add each of the items that you would like to print barcode labels for. The search can be used here to search for the category or part of the product name. The quantity of each item will determine the number of labels printed for that item. Don't forget to give the new print order an order number or some type of name in the order number field. (I always forget so we added a reminder) Once your print order is saved you're all set, now jump down below to the section Printing Product barcodes from an order
Method 2
In this method, we'll use a CSV file to add the products to our print order. This method is ideal when you want to print product barcodes many styles or categories of items and adding them manually would be a chore. Here's how it works:
We'll need a CSV file with 3 columns:
- An order number: This can be anything you like. If you are importing a category you might use the category name and the date as the order number like: TOYS-04-10-2019. This same order number will appear on every row that you have a product SKU, all the way to the bottom.
- The SKUs you would like to print barcodes for: Each row will have a single SKU. If you're looking for a quick way to get a list of every SKU you have in GroovePacker you can
use this export.
- The quantity of barcode labels to print for each SKU: The number in the 3rd column will determine how many of each of the barcode labels are printed for each product. Just like the order number, you'll need to have a quantity on every row that you have a product SKU.
Save this file as a CSV and import it following the instructions here. Since the order date will not be needed you can use the "Use Current Date/Time" option.
Once your print order is imported, you're ready to begin...
Printing Product barcodes from an order
Printing the barcode labels from an order is super easy. Locate the order in the orders section. Click the target icon on the order's row to select it (the row will turn green). Now, from the Printing drop-down menu, above the order list, select the "Print product barcode label" option. Allow a few moments for the labels to be generated, more time if there are many. If nothing happens please be sure pop-ups are not being blocked by chrome.
*A special note for users printing more than 1000 barcode labels at a time: Some memory is needed for each label that is printed. Depending on your system, you may see slow performance and other trouble when trying to print large quantities of labels. We now split large print jobs into multiple PDFs which should alleviate out of memory issues.
That said, please let us know if you see any problems with large print jobs. One quick fix is to split the products between multiple orders. This would be done by changing the order number. Each unique order number will represent another print order and those labels will be printed separately.
Printer Settings
These barcode labels are intended to be printed with your Thermal Printer. Unlike ink based labels, that can smudge or become 'too light to scan' as ink runs low, thermal labels tend to scan reliably. Not having to replace ink cartridges is a bonus too. The barcode we generate is formatted to be printed on 3" x 1" Label Stock or 2" X 1" stock. You may be able to print it on smaller labels that have a similar ratio of width to height. Each label is viewed as a page, so print 200 pages if you want 200 labels. In general, these printers should always be set to print at their native resolution. If you set them higher than their native resolution you may not get a scan-able barcode. ie If their native resolution is 203 DPI, and you have it set to 300 DPI, it will be less clear and you'll want to adjust that in your printer settings dialog.
If you are printing from a computer running windows or mac os you can use the Direct Print option to speed up the process of printing may separate print jobs.