Printing barcode labels with Dymo 450 - Always get an error and can't format the labels.

[MH_PT]

I started out using avery labels and my regular printer to print barcoded labels from my item list or my PO's in SquareUp.com.  I was able to print to the printer using avery labels 1/2" x 1 3/4" but these labels are huge and the barcode took up most of the space.  I don't want my product labels that big, so I bought the Dymo 450 WiFi and wanted to use the 1" x 1" labels.  Now I can't print labels with barcodes at all.  I get the error saying that I need to make my "the barcode for ________ item is too long for the chosen template. Please try another template or shorten the SKU which will reduce the length of the barcode.  SKU's are suppose to be able to go up to 18 spaces, mine are not this big and yet I still can't print a barcode.  

The other piece of this is that there doesn't seem to be anyway to format the label.  When I do print labels from Squareup.com, the top margin isn't set correctly and my information gets cut off at the top, this is usually the price.  So I end up having to use the DYMO software to create my labels.  I have hundreds of items, this is so time consuming.

What am I doing wrong?  Anyone have any ideas? This is very frustrating and time consuming.  This is also keeping me from being able to easily scan barcodes at check-out.  Leaves much more room for mistakes.  

Would really appreciate some help.  Thanks.

[JJ_ · Accepted solution]

This sounds like a good question for our Retail team, @MH_PT

They can take a look at your account with you to help shine a light here, as they are able to look at your account alongside you in order to pinpoint what's going on here. Please reach out by phone or email when you have a moment by logging into your Square account and heading here.

[MH_PT]

Hmm, not sure how an issue printing barcode labels is related to Payroll.  But I will contact support Square Support.

[TammiAnn]

I have the same issue. There seems to be no resolution. It seems to be a waste of money to pay for square retail. Im trying shopify at my second location.

[Kassi_]

Welcome to the Community, @TammiAnn - 

Have you reached out to CS about what you're seeing with printing  with the Dymo 450?

I will keep an eye out for your reply👀. 

[JJ_]

My apologies @MH_PT  I meant to say our Retail Team would be the best fit for this. Sorry for the confusion here.

[PM1973]

I order my Barcode labels from onlinelabels.com I have a line of Braille Greeting Cards that i make by hand. My Printer for the cards make them fuzzy, so i order them and place the labels on the back of the cards. This way if they are sold in stores, there will be no problems with scanning.

[DinaLRosenberg]

this seems to be an issue with the way square labels are formatted for DYMO- it likely is an engineering issue. For us we make sure we select print max size, otherwise barcode is too small and won't scan.

[monomono]

We use the Dymo 30346 (1/2" x 1 7/8"). They're not huge and fit a barcode perfectly. The only thing we found was that to get the barcode to print so that it scanned properly, you have to go into advanced settings and increase the DPI and change the format to barcodes and images. Otherwise the barcode isn't clear enough to scan. 

[DDJT]

Reading this thread because I'd like to implement the bar code label printing and scanning at my location. To a fault, EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. I talk to (and now including the folks on this thread reporting issues) has a PROBLEM with making this work. What is SQUARE doing to simplify/rectify this process so folks aren't having to 'trial and error' getting this to work and wasting materials that cost money. Is SQUARE working on this? And when can the community expect a resolution and an accompanying easy to follow tutorial (not one where no one speaks and you're just expected to follow the beeping cursor with your eyes to understand how the process works - not at all helpful)?

[purplebutterfly]

I've been using Square barcode generation "tools" for four years. Nothing has changed in those four years. Clearly, this is an aspect of their product that they care nothing about making better. Why? Because it's just a basic function we have to live with but it generates zero new revenue for Square, so why fix it? Because at some point, we may move on to Shopify or another platform that cares about making barcode generation easy for brick and mortar retailers.

That said, here's what my trial and error experience (none of it learned via Square help information) has taught me about generating working barcode labels via Square:

The only barcodes that work when printed on a DYMO printers are the one in the dropdown labeled DYMO. Don't try to use a Zebra format to print to a DYMO printer. Won't work. I use the DYMO 1738595 format (3/4 x 2 1/2).  I print them on DYMO 30345 labels (also 3/4 x 2 1/2) but also have printed them on another size. 

Only print labels from Google Chrome browser. For some reason, printing form Microsoft Edge produces bad labels.

Be sure your printer settings in Google Chrome are at 300 dpi and scale at "Default."  I had an employee who reset the scale of printer dialog for another project, then printed hundreds of barcode labels without resetting to "default" scale and we had to throw them all away.

Clean your printer regularly. Dymo has a cleaning card that should be run through the printer a dozen times once a month. A dirty printer will print barcodes where the bars blur together and can't be read. 

At one point, I was concerned about SKUs that were longer that 7 characters printing as unreadable. I still try to keep SKUs short but don't know that's really an issue. 

[JJ_]

Hello everyone!

Thank you for the feedback and experiences shared. I will be passing this over to our product team for their visibility. and consideration when working on future updates.

[purplebutterfly]

While they are looking into improving barcodes, they should re-work the entire process for creating the barcodes. Clunky as hell.

[dpeterson101]

At the very least Square should put the spot where you lookup your items ABOVE the fold. A simple fix that would save one mouse movement for every product. We have thousands of products.

[DinaLRosenberg]

When are we going to have better label printing? It's been some time and it's still a big issue!

[shopfybr]

I too have struggled with Dymo labels on Square for quite some time now. I even switched to a Zebra printer at one point to see if it would be better but ultimately returned the Zebra and stuck with the old Dymo 450 Turbo. I have some workarounds but still don't get a nice looking barcode label. Hopefully this ongoing issue will be resolved soon!

[MH_PT]

I was going to try the Zebra printer, now I won't waste my time.  Good to know, thank you.

[HookandShuttle]

We use the Zebra ZSB printers for both barcode labels and shipping labels. E use their software to generate the barcodes and scan them into the Square items. We haven’t had any trouble with it at all. 

[PvnNpt]

We also use the Zebra printer and have had really good outcomes.  We use  1 1/2" x 1/2" sized labels.  We tried using different sizes but this one works the best.  Just have to use Chrome as the browser. 

[loboyle]

Has this issue been given any attention, or better yet resolved? I am also trying to print 1" square labels with a Dymo 450.The error message suggesting to shorten the barcode is laughable, we need the labels to match the barcodes from the manufacturer.

[BS7]

Yes, I know what error you’re talking about. On smaller sized labels, there is only enough room for a certain amount of characters. I think it’s around 5. 
if you’re going to use the barcode already printed on the product, I suggest including all of your information except for the barcode and then placing that sticker with price just above the manufacturers printed barcode on the item. 
Or what I also do sometimes is use the last 5 characters of the manufacturers barcode as the printed barcode on the label I’m creating. That way I can still match it up for my record. 
Or just use a bigger label