Printers

Stockly → Operations → Printing → Printers lists every device the module can send to.

Columns: Name, Role, Connection, Packing station, Stock type, Last printed, Active. A device that has never printed shows Never.

Role is what the printer is allowed to receive: Labels, Documents, or Labels and documents.

Adding a printer

Add printer opens a four-step wizard: Connection, Device, Role and labels, Location.

Connection

The first step decides everything after it. Each option has a ? next to it that explains the trade-off.

Option	Who prints	When to pick it
Network printer	the shop server	the server can reach the printer — so the server is in the same network as the warehouse
USB at the packing station	the browser	Android tablets, Chromebooks, Linux, macOS. Needs Chrome or Edge
Through Zebra Browser Print	a small program on the packing computer	works on Windows and reaches printers the server cannot
Through the local agent	an agent at the station	shops in the cloud, where the server cannot see the printer
Office printer	the shop server over IPP	A4 paperwork, no driver needed

Caution

On Windows the operating system keeps printers to itself, so the browser cannot take a USB device over. The wizard says so and offers the two ways out: Connect over the network or Use the agent instead.

Device

For a network device, enter the Address and press the arrows in the field: the printer introduces itself and the remaining fields fill in on their own, its name included. Device identified: confirms that it worked. Once a name has been entered manually, identifying the device again leaves it unchanged.

Two other answers are normal:

• the device answered but did not identify itself; select the matching Printer type below,
• No answer from this address — check the network and the port.

Advanced settings holds Port and the two timeouts. The field help explains where to find a printer’s address; the short version is that a label printer prints its own configuration label, and an office printer shows the address on its display.

Caution

Reserve the address for the printer in the router, or set a fixed one on the device. If it changes later, printing stops with no visible reason.

For Through Zebra Browser Print, press Find printers; the list comes from the service, so there is nothing to type. If it does not answer, the service is not running, or it has asked for this site to be allowed and is waiting for approval.

Role and labels

Name, Resolution (dpi), Label width (mm), Label height (mm) and Active.

If the device cannot take PDF directly, the wizard states this: documents will be converted first, which works but is slower.

Location

Three fields, and together they are what makes routing automatic.

Packing station — operators assigned to that station print here without choosing a device. It is left empty for a shop-wide printer. Will print here: lists the operators the link covers, and warns when there are none. That list comes from the Assigned users field of the station in the floor plan, and from the printing assignment on the operator’s own account, and either one is enough.

Warehouse — which site the device stands at. A printer at a packing station already answers this through the floor plan; it is filled in for a shared office device, so that it can be the default for that warehouse. It is left empty for a device that serves every site.

Stock type — what this device is loaded with, A4 paper or a 100 x 150 mm label. Jobs that ask for a stock type only go to devices carrying it, which is how a pick list reaches the office printer and a courier label reaches the label printer at the same bench. It is left empty to keep the device available to every job that names no stock type. See Stock types.

Test and calibrate

Both live in the row menu of the printer list.

Print test label queues a job, which can then be followed through the queue: waiting, sending, sent to printer.

Calibrate opens the offset window. The test label has a frame drawn along the very edge of the stock: if one side is missing, the label size or the offset is wrong. Each arrow moves the print by about two millimetres, and nothing is printed until it is requested with Print check label, so a correction costs one label rather than one per click. Closing the window keeps the shift even when nothing was printed.

Deleting

Jobs already printed keep their history. Jobs still waiting will need a new printer assigned.

Next steps

• Print queue — where the test label shows up.
• Packing stations — the link that routes a label to the right bench.
• Default printers — when the device at the bench is not the required answer.
• Stock types — the list the Stock type field draws from.