Windows printer driver model (defined by Microsoft) was designed for page-sized (i.e. A4 or letter) printers. This driver works very well for standard office printers (laser, inkjet, dot-matrix), however, it does not support thermal transfer printer specific features. These features vary regarding different printer manufacturers and models, but basically they are almost all related to the printing speed and include:

• Internal bar code support
  Instead of complete graphics representation of the bar code, only bar code type and contents are sent to the printer that is capable of printing bar code by itself. The printer will image the bar code and print it on the label.



• Storing part of the label in the printer's internal memory
  Printer can remember the fixed part of the label, so NiceLabel can send just the whole label data only with the first label. For each other label NiceLabel sends the changes from the previous label only. Because less data is sent to the printer, the labels can print out faster.



• Internal counters
  Almost all thermal transfer printers automatically support incrementing of serial numbers in text or bar code objects. This way, a series of labels with counters can be printed simply by sending the first label and the label quantity to the printer. The printer increases the counter on its own, there is no need to send counter value for each label.



• Font and graphics downloading
  Frequently used Windows fonts and graphics files can be stored in the printer's memory (memory card, flash memory, internal memory, etc.). Once the fonts or graphics files are stored in the printer, you can use them as printer internal built-in objects. You can reuse them on the label by simply sending proper commands to the printer (NiceDriver takes care of it), minimizing the amount of data sent to the printer.



• Storing label formats in printer's memory for standalone printing
  Standalone printing (without connection to the PC) is often required in industry. Some printers support storing of labels templates in the printer memory. Selection of the label format and data, as well as label printing itself, is automatically done on the printer, or with command files.

Because there is no standard way of supporting these features, optimal result can only be achieved by a combination of special labeling software (like NiceLabel) and appropriate printer drivers (NiceDrivers in this case). Due to these printer driver model limitations, there is no possibility of optimal printing from standard Windows applications (like Microsoft Word, Corel Draw, etc.).

NiceLabel labeling software allows faster printing and it supports the advanced features of thermal transfer printers when you use NiceDrivers.