Help · Updated 22 October 2026
Printing barcode labels
The phone app turns a selection of items into a Code128 label sheet as a PDF, capped at 50 copies. You then print or share the PDF through your operating system's print dialog.
A shop that only stocks packaged goods can run on the barcodes already printed on the packaging. The moment stock is loose, repacked, or stored in a bin, the supplier's barcode is no longer on the thing you are counting. Printing your own labels closes that gap, and it is the same code the product already uses, so nothing about scanning changes.
What the label sheet is
The phone app builds a Code128 label sheet as a PDF. You choose the items, choose how many copies of each you want, and the app produces one document containing the whole run. The PDF is ordinary: it opens in a viewer, prints on a normal printer, or goes to a dedicated label printer if that printer accepts PDFs.
The product does not send the PDF to a printing service of its own. The file is handed to your operating system, and the operating system's print dialog is the printer integration.
Print a sheet from the phone
- Open the app and go to the label printing action for the items you want.
- Choose the items. If you are labelling one shelf, choose that shelf's items rather than the whole catalogue — a short sheet is easier to check.
- Set the number of copies for each item. The sheet is capped at 50 copies.
- Generate the sheet. You now have a PDF.
- Use print or share, then pick the printer from the operating system's dialog. Sharing is the route when the printer is on another device, or when you want to keep the PDF.
Printing before you need it is worth the two minutes. A sheet printed while the shelf is being reorganised tends to be the sheet that is still sitting in the office a week later.
What a label carries
Each label carries a Code128 barcode of the item's own code. That is the important part: a printed label is not a second identity for the item, it is the same code in a form you can stick on the thing. Scanning it behaves exactly like scanning the supplier's barcode and opens that item. Print labels only for items that already exist, so a scan always resolves.
Because it is the item's stored code, a label printed today still works after the item is renamed or repriced. The code is the key; names and prices are attributes that can change underneath it.
The 50-copy cap
A sheet is capped at 50 copies. The cap keeps a mistyped number from turning into a thousand-label print job on a label printer, and it keeps the PDF a size that a phone can build and share without struggling.
For more than 50 labels, print the sheet again. Two sheets of 50 is the same result as one sheet of 100, and it is easier to stop halfway if you change your mind about the second half.
Label stock advice
- Start with a plain-paper test sheet. Print one page on ordinary paper, scan two or three labels with the phone, and only then commit to label stock. It costs one page and catches a sizing mistake before it costs a sheet of labels.
- Match the stock to the printer. Sheet labels suit an ordinary laser or inkjet printer. A roll printer wants roll stock and its own driver; the PDF is still the input, but the printer decides the media.
- Do not shrink a label to fit more on a page. A barcode printed smaller than the stock expects is the most common reason a shop's own labels scan badly. Fewer labels per page is cheaper than a shelf that has to be typed by hand.
- Keep the bars clean and flat. Matte stock reads better than glossy, and a label wrapped around a curve is harder to scan than one on a flat surface.
- Print a spare. Labels fall off bins. A second copy of the ten codes you use most saves a reprint trip.
Where to put them
Put the label where the scan happens, not where the product looks best. On a bin, that is the front edge at the height you hold the phone. On a shelf edge, it is the strip rather than the product, so replacing the stock does not remove the label. On a loose item, a label on the underside survives handling better than one wrapped around the front.
Label the shelf as well as the item when the same product lives in two places. Two labels for one code are not a duplicate; the code is the same and the scan resolves to the same item. The code identifies the product, and where it lives is a separate question.
Scanning your own labels
A Code128 label printed by the shop is in the supported format list, so it scans with the phone camera and with a Bluetooth or USB scanner in keyboard-wedge mode. There is nothing to register and no "our labels" mode. If a printed label will not scan, the usual causes are print quality, a label that is too small, or a crease across the bars — reprint before you assume the item is wrong.
What it does not do yet
- The web portal does not print labels per row. Label printing is a phone-app action today; the web app has no per-item label button.
- No printer setup inside the product. The operating system's print dialog is the integration, so the printer must already work on the device.
- No label designer. You choose items and copies; you do not lay out fields, logos or sizes.