Brother P-touch label printer

TODO TODO TODO TODO: explore this Android app

My hardware

I own the P-Touch Cube Plus PT-P710BT.

• Amazon purchase link
• the manual(s)
• downloads for Windows — the Windows-based editor, the printer driver, and such
  • (the last-9-digits of my serial number are 'J2G468686')
  • see here for more if you keep getting the error "The printer driver compatible with this application is not installed."
• list of compatible tape
  • While heat-shrink tape is officially not supported on this printer, there are documented hacks for getting this printer to accept them and print to them. [1a] [1b] [2]

Software options

• Android — P-touch Design&Print 2
• Android — Brother iPrint&Label
• Android — Brother Pro Label Tool (not compatible with the PT-710BT)
• Windows — Brother P-touch Editor

Troubleshooting — Streaks when printing

If there are streaks when printing, there could be two problems: either 1) the cartridge needs to be turned a bit, like when it was first opened, or 2) you need to clean the print head.

To clean the print head, get a Q-tip and some rubbing alcohol. This is the area that you're trying to clean. To avoid dropping any full drops of alcohol inside the machine, I usually "flick the Q-tip mostly dry" just before I touch the print head.

P-touch Editor for Windows

Unicode characters

You may have problems printing out Unicode symbols using this software (just the Windows version). This is caused by the program not having any fallback font mechanism. The unfortunate solution is to use this website's "Fonts that support" feature, and then search the app's font drop-down to find an acceptable font.

QR codes

Built-in — The Windows P-touch editor does include this functionality, via Insert > Barcode > Protocol: QR-Code. However, the QR code can only be scaled in a few quantized steps.

External tool — To fix the irritating scaling limitations, 1) use an online QR code generator that outputs SVG, 2) use Inkscape to convert SVG ⇒ EMF, then 3) import the EMF into the P-touch Editor.

Import from Inkscape (or any PDF, SVG, or other vector file)

In Inkscape, save in EMF file format. Then in P-touch Editor, do Insert > Image.

labeling cables

TODO: Explore this more. The first time you run the P-touch Editor after installing it, it asks you if you want to install it in "Electrical/Network mode", which is a mode that's designed to label cables.

Links to explore: [2] [3]

Windows software — print using other software

The manual has two important sections that mention different ways of printing with other applications:

• "Creating labels with other applications" — This talks about an add-in that allows printing from Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Outlook.
• "Printing directly from other applications" — This talks about a way to print from any application. In my case, that would probably be Inkscape. [2] [3]

Some benefits of being able to print from Inkscape:

• The Windows P-Touch editor only allows rotating text in increments of 90°. Inkscape allows rotating to any angle.