Printers & Compatibility

You have two primary print functions with FSI, plain paper (reports, forms, labels, etc…), and labels. For plain paper, we highly recommend using a laser printer rather than a bubble or inkjet printer (ink can smudge, run, or smear). For labels, you can choose between laser or thermal. Over the years, technology with thermal labels has increased the area of overall quality and longevity. FSI has found clients using thermal over laser labels save on overall printing costs. With a thermal printer, the label is smaller, and you don’t use toner.
You can purchase both laser and thermal printers from FSI with full configuration and hardware support. If you choose to buy your own printer, please understand that our support will be limited and may incur additional fees when providing help.
Reports and Laser Labels

Printers for these functions are any printers capable of understanding the common printing language called PCL5. The language must be part of the software embedded in the printer; if the language is not understood by the operating system driver, that printer will not work. Most business/enterprise class printers support PCL5 and have the language in the embedded software. It is also highly recommended that this printer have a built-in network card, capable of either JetDirect or LPD protocols. Laser printers have the capability of “duplexing”.  This means the printer can print patient leaflets on both sides of the page.

FSI primarily sells and supports HP LaserJet and Lexmark series laser printers.

Thermal Labels

The main benefits of thermal labels over laser labels are that they are cheaper per label to print, they print faster, you will use much less laser toner, and require a much smaller printer. Most customers who use these small format labels purchase a less expensive laser printer such as the HP LaserJet Pro M4xx for reports and other plain paper print jobs. To print thermal format labels, the printer must understand the ZBLII printing language developed and maintained by Zebra. Like the PCL5 requirements of Report and Laser Label printers, the ZBLII language must be embedded in the printer and not be only part of the operating system driver. Also like Report and Laser Label printers, we highly recommend this printer have a built-in network card, capable of either the JetDirect or LPD protocols.

FSI primarily sells and supports Zebra thermal printers.