Comparisons & guides

Making choices before you commit

Some decisions about fonts and printers are cheap to change and some aren't. Picking a font for a single label is easy to redo. Choosing a label language or a printer brand for a whole site is not. The pages here are for the second kind of decision, where a little thinking up front is worth a lot.

If you're weighing languages, ZPL versus EPL fonts sets out what each can do with text and when it's worth moving. Our blog goes further in ZPL or EPL: which label language should you use, with a view on migration.

Small labels deserve their own guidance

Tiny labels with barcodes are the hardest to get right, because every dot counts. Best fonts for barcodes and small labels gives sizes by resolution and tips on spacing. Pair it with designing small thermal labels that stay readable and fonts for barcode text.

Zebra and everyone else

Plenty of printers claim to speak ZPL, and for simple labels they work well. For fonts, the details matter. Zebra versus other label printers explains how driver-based printers differ from ZPL printers, and what to test on a clone before you buy a hundred of them. If you're choosing between Zebra series, fonts by printer model is a good companion.

A few principles that hold up

Choose the tool that fits your real requirements, not the longest feature list. Test with your own labels, including the awkward ones, rather than a vendor's demo. Keep your designs portable by relying on simple, widely supported features, such as font 0, and sending special text as graphics. And write down why you chose what you chose, so the next person doesn't have to guess.

If you're just getting started with fonts, how to choose the right ZPL font is a gentle place to begin, and the label generator lets you try ideas quickly.