THERMAL TRANSFER VERSUS DIRECT THERMAL PRINTING

If you are new to labelling concerns, the idea of thermal printing and thermal labels may confuse you. You will hear one person talk about how he loves the fact that thermal labels do not require the use of any print ribbon. You will then hear another person say she can get so many rolls of labels out of a single print ribbon that she cannot believe it.

You will see people selling thermal printing solutions for general-purpose needs and then you see others warning against using thermal printers for anything other than temporary labels. There is a great deal of confusion surrounding thermal labels for those new to the field. Who is telling the truth? Who has it right?

The answer, surprisingly, is everybody. That is because thermal printing is a large tent that houses to different techniques. Both use heat as a system of producing image transfer for thermal labels, but beyond that similarity, they are really fairly different.

Thermal transfer involves the application of a heated print head to a special ribbon. The result is an image on the papers or thermal labels in the printer. It does require a ribbon and makes a great general-purpose printing solution.

Direct transfer, on the other hand, involved direct application of the heated print head to a specially treated paper. The image is then burned in to the paper. These systems do not use ribbons, but the labels often do not last long as the special paper and stock used for the thermal labels tends to darken when exposed to sun or heat.

Thermal labels can be a tricky subject. Knowing the difference between thermal transfer label printing and direct thermal label printing should help better position you to make good decisions about your thermal label needs.