• Steve Denson gives you some tips to make the most of Super Labeller in the first part of our guide...

Working with printers

Canon bubblejets are a very popular choice with '16 owners, and in fact many have bought the computer as a package with such a printer at an attractive all-in price. What they may not realise, however, is that the Canons can handle what are known as standard "dot-matrix" labels which come on continous "tractor-feed" roll, 8 to a sheet and 2.5" wide x 1.5" deep x 1 across.

Before the advent of inkjet printing, this was the industry standard type of address label and the sheets have small round holes at the edges designed for a matrix tractor-feed unit to pull the sheets through the printer. Now, quite obviously, inkjets do not have such a device and the manufacturers all insist that special inkjet labels must be used. These are usually placed on a special A4 sheet with labels set out 2 across. The trouble is that they are quite expensive and not always convenient if you wish to print just a couple of labels, as you then face the problem of how to print the rest of the labels on the part-used sheet.

We have always found that the bubblejets in our office are superb at handling the 1-across "dot-matrix" labels and we do virtually all our label printing on this type of sheet - and that means hundreds per week including addresses and "return to sender" labels. We use several Canons including a BJC 250, a BJC 4300 and even an old BJC 10 - the first of the bubblejet breed. All can safely handle the "dot-matrix" labels as long as each sheet is inserted seperately (not left on the roll) with the paper guide positioned around 4 inches from the right hand edge so that the sheet is well supported. The print quality is very good - probably better than that of the "official" inkjet labels - and the ink does not run.

The advantages include the fact that labels of this type are cheap and there is almost no wastage at all as Super Labeller's "advance paper in printer" utility option allows you to roll the sheet up by however many blank lines are necessary to reach the next unused label. Not many PC labelling programs are as helpful! An accurate measure is 10 blank lines per used label, so to get the label 3 on a sheet of 8 you would "scroll up" 20 lines. When printing on to standard size address labels the print parameter settings, selected from main menu option 4, should be as follows:

• Print from line 1 to 10 (which are the defaults)
• Vertical spacing 1 (e.g. between labels)
• Left hand margin of 8

If you prefer to use inkjet labels, then of course Super Labeller can handle these too. Once again the program's "paper advance" utility option is useful for lining-up the print head at the top of the first label. Then, when you have printed on one side of the sheet, you simply insert it the other way round and print on the second row of labels.

A few useful tips

1 - Practise printing on the back of the label sheets to perfect the settings before using the actual sticky labels.

2 - When editing in Super Labeller, you may find that the odd numeric character appears unexpectedly. This is not due to a fault in the program and seems to be down to a keyboard quirk on the '16. It only seems to occur when moving around the on-screen label with CAPS LOCK on, and so the answer is to turn CAPS LOCK off before using the arrow keys to move up, down, left or right.

Steve Denson is boss of SD Microsystems, who produced Super Labeller