Direct Thermal Printers

There are two types of thermal printers: Direct Thermal and Thermal Transfer Printers

We explain the difference between the Thermal label printer types.

Direct thermal printing is where the inked ribbon is removed from the process so media is more light sensitive, heat sensitive and sensitive to abrasions thus reducing its life expectancy of the printed product. This is mainly used where the low shelf life is not a disadvantage and it is especially important to print at low cost. Typical areas of application are tickets, cash register receipts, luggage tags, event tickets, shipping labels, pic labels, name tags, and visitor passes in hospitality and many different industries.

Thermal transfer printers use a digital thermal printing method that produces durable, long-lasting printed images on a wide variety of media by applying heat & melting a coating of thermal transfer ribbon onto the printed material.

BIXOLON’s range of 2” and 4” desktop label printers offer either thermal transfer printing or direct thermal label printing to produce labels of high-quality for printed tickets, wristbands, and more.