Abstract: A hand held labeler is programmable to operate in accordance with a sequence of commands forming an application program that is downloaded to the labeler and stored in a random access memory. Each command is associated with a command routine selected from a set of command routines that is stored in a read only memory. The commands of the application program and associated command routines are executed by a microprocessor of the labeler to perform flexible data collection, data manipulation and label printing operations.

Abstract: A program generator allows a user to create a software program capable of being executed by a remote labeler to control the printing of one or more labels and to control data collection operations thereof. The program generator stores a user entered sequence of commands selected from a set of commands that control label printing and data collection operations. The stored sequence of commands is validated in accordance with the program generator such that each command entered by the user is compared to a set of allowable commands to determine whether the command is valid or not. During the validation of each of the commands, the program generator determines whether the parameters of the command define allowable data manipulation operations to be performed by the labeler. If not, the program generator provides an error message that identifies the particular command and the error associated with the command.

Abstract: There is disclosed a portable printer for printing on either tags or labels. Its print head assembly includes a thermal print head, a platen roll. The printer has a housing with front, rear and top portions, a single horizontal printed circuit board, and a vertically extending battery pack which is releasably attached to the rear portion and is directly plug-connectable to the circuit board. The print head assembly, a peel roller and a releasable presser roll are located at the front portion of the housing. The print head assembly includes a spring arrangement for urging the print head into pressure contact with the platen roll. The spring arrangement has main springs and an auxiliary spring. The auxiliary spring bears against the housing and the print head assembly.

Abstract: A printer has a thermal head and a cooperable platen roll, which are moveable relatively apart to provide a gap. The cartridge is supplied with a removable installation device which has a guide which can swing outwardly to align the ink ribbon with the gap. When the cartridge is loaded onto locator pins on the printer, the ink ribbon is guided into the gap.

Abstract: A method of couponing utilizes a coupon comprised of a label material layer or sheet and an underlay material layer or sheet releasably adhered by non-tacky adhesive. The underlay sheet has a coating of pressure sensitive adhesive to which a release liner is releasably adhered. The coupon can carry a bar code which is not scannable when the coupon is adhered to merchandise, however, the bar code can be scanned when a portion of the coupon is removed and presented for redemption.

Abstract: A printer having a number of optional features or operations is reconfigurable by software alone. The printer includes an EPROM that stores the software routines defining all of the optional operations of the printer. An EEPROM stores a jump table identifying each optional operation software routine as enabled or disabled. The information stored in the jump table for each enabled routine identifies the location at which the routine is stored in the EPROM; whereas, the information stored for each disabled routine includes a disable flag. The printer includes an interface which allows a new jump table to be downloaded from a personal computer into the EEPROM of the printer to enable disabled routines, to disable enabled routines, and to replace disabled routines by downloading a new routine into a RAM to thereby reconfigure the printer. A master jump table and sub-jump tables are provided to increase the efficiency of the reconfiguring operation.

Abstract: A printer for printing serial bar codes on a web of record members with a thermal print head is shown. The thermal print head is driven by a series of pulses having a constant duty cycle for each row of information printed. However, the number of pulses in the series is varied from row to row, in accordance with the status of the current row being printed as a bar row or a space row; with the status of at least one row immediately preceding the current row and at least one row immediately succeeding the current row; and with the number of bar rows previously printed. By varying the number of pulses applied to the thermal print head and thus the amount of energy applied thereto, discontinuities in the serial bar code and any information, such as a human readable character, printed adjacent thereto are minimized.

Abstract: There is disclosed a printer having a thermal print head and a cooperable platen roll. The platen roll is driven to advance a web of record medium and an ink ribbon into cooperation with the print head. The printer can use an ink ribbon cartridge. The printer has a compact arrangement for the record medium supply roll, the ink ribbon cartridge, the printing mechanism, the drive mechanism, the keyboard, and the cutting mechanism for cutting tags from the web.

Abstract: A spooler is shown for a barcode information system. The spooler allows one printer to be assigned to one queue of the spooler, multiple printers to be assigned to a single queue; and a single printer to be assigned to multiple queues. The spooler is flexible in its configuration so as to allow print jobs to be distributed evenly among the various printers of the system. The printers of the system need not be the same and may be incompatible in that they communicate in different languages and/or they do not have the same format options. To minimize processing time, jobs may be terminated while in the process of printing. The jobs can later be restarted at the point in the job at which termination occurred. Further, format and graphic packets previously transmitted to a printer by the spooler for one job are not retransmitted to the same printer for subsequent jobs utilizing those same format and graphic packets so as to increase the efficiency of the system.

Abstract: A printer is shown which employs an improved data entry technique wherein a predetermined set up time is established for entering semi-fixed information, that is, information which changes but relatively infrequently. A bit map image of the semi-fixed information is created only once after the printer is initialized so that only a bit map image of variable information need be created each time the printer is operated to print. The printer further includes a limited keyboard for the generation of control signals to which the printer's processor responds differently depending upon the mode of operation of the printer. In one mode of operation, the printer's processor is responsive to the actuation of one key to control a display and the entry of data into a memory for printing. In a second mode of operation, however, the printer's processor is responsive to the actuation of that same key to control the movement of paper stock with respect to a print head.

Abstract: There is disclosed a printer having a thermal print head and a cooperable platen roll. The platen roll is driven to advance a web of record medium and an ink ribbon into cooperation with the print head. The printer can use an ink ribbon cartridge. The printer has a compact arrangement for the record medium supply roll, the ink ribbon cartridge, the printing mechanism, the drive mechanism, the keyboard, and the cutting mechanism for cutting tags from the web. The ink ribbon cartridge has movable guides which are aligned by spindles on the printer.

Abstract: A barcode identification system format editor is shown which allows a single format to automatically be created for multiple, incompatible printers. The system includes a number of barcode printers of various types, each barcode printer type having an associated set of printer function options selectable by a user to define a format, i.e., the layout of fields for a tag, label or the like. When a user selects various printer types for which a format is to be generated, the format editor automatically determines the intersection of the sets of printer function options for each of the selected printer types to create a common set of printer function options. Thereafter, the format editor prompts the user to select only those printer function options supported by the selected printer types for the format as indicated in the common printer function option set.

Abstract: A barcode identification system is shown that includes a user operable personal computer for creating print jobs. The personal computer is coupled to a number of printers for printing the data for a job in a selected format on a record member such as a tag, label or the like. The system employs modular software. During the initialization of each of the software modules, the system determines whether the module includes a key identification that matches a system key and if not, the operation of the software module is limited to a demonstration mode if that mode is allowable. A data entry routine aids the user entering valid data for a selected format. In response to a print command, the data entered by the user is combined with the selected format to form a job. The job is then sent to a spooler which distributes the job to one of the barcode printers of the system.

Abstract: A hand-held labeler with an integrally formed optical scanner prints labels with a coded record selected from a plurality of optically scanned and stored coded records. In a data acquisition mode, the optical scanner scans a plurality of coded records, such as bar codes, to generate data representing the coded records for storage in a memory. Selective printing of scanned code and/or information associated therewith is accomplished utilizing a display that is controlled by a keyboard to display information that identifies the data stored in the memory. When information identifying a desired coded record is shown on the display, a print switch may be actuated to cause the code associated with the displayed information to be printed on one or more labels. Further, the scanner may also be used to scan different types of bar codes where each bar code includes a coded information portion and at least one guard code identifying the type of code.

Abstract: A battery charger includes a microcontroller for simultaneously and independently charging the batteries of a number of battery powered devices. The battery charger includes a constant current source associated with each channel that is connectable to a device's battery. Each constant current source is switchable between a trickle charge state and a high charge state under the control of the microcontroller to charge the battery connected thereto quickly and safely. The microcontroller further performs diagnostics continuously throughout the charging of a battery to determine whether malfunctions have occurred in the microprocessor of the microcontroller, in the software of the microcontroller or in any of the current sources.

Abstract: There is disclosed a printer having a thermal print head and a cooperable platen roll. The platen roll is driven to advance a web of record medium and an ink ribbon into cooperation with the print head. The printer can use an ink ribbon cartridge. The printer has a compact arrangement for the record medium supply roll, the ink ribbon cartridge, the printing mechanism, the drive mechanism, the keyboard, and the cutting mechanism for cutting tags from the web.

Abstract: There is disclosed a cutting apparatus which is an improvement over co-owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,693,151 including a mechanism for accelerating the cutting mechanism prior to transverse severing of a traveling web; wherein an elongate knife and a cooperating rotatable knife are mounted on separate mounting members which are biased to urge the knives into cutting cooperation; wherein an electric motor is stationarily mounted and the cutting mechanism moves together with the traveling web, and the electric motor causes the rotatable knife to travel through a flexible drive connection; and wherein the rotatable knife is mounted for sliding movement on a slide mounted on a rod, with the slide having a bearing protected by and between a pair of spaced floating seals received on the rod.

Abstract: There is disclosed a thermal printer for printing on webs of record members such as tags and labels. The printer has a wide print head which can print on either a wide web or on a narrow web. When printing on a narrow web, pressure contact is relieved or minimized between the portion of the platen roll and printing elements beyond the side edge of the web to minimize wear as the platen roll rotates. This is accomplished by inclining the print head and platen roll relative to each other. In order to promote uniform tension in the ink ribbon, an adjustable guide is provided along the ink ribbon path. The guide can be adjusted in a flat plane. The guide is maintained perpendicular to the direction of ink ribbon travel and promotes uniformity of tension across the width of the ink ribbon and consequently enables tracking to be optimized.

Abstract: A printer is shown for printing a large number of symbols from a standardized set of symbols wherein each symbol has an associated code word that identifies the symbol within the set. The pixel data for each symbol in the standardized set is stored in a memory at addresses that are different from the code word identifying the symbol. The printer includes a microprocessor control circuit that receives input data including a code word identifying a symbol to be printed from an input device. The microprocessor control circuit includes a direct memory access controller for controlling the transfer of data from the symbol memory to an output image buffer. Hardware is provided to generate the addresses to the symbol memory necessary to read pixel data for a given symbol out from the memory in response to an output code word thereby eliminating the need for a large look-up table.

Abstract: There is disclosed a web handling apparatus including a printer for printing on longitudinally extending multi-portion webs, with the web including a plurality of longitudinally extending web portions and connected at a longitudinal line of weakening between each adjacent pair of web portions, each web portion including record members, guide structure for causing adjacent web portions to move along different paths or planes to effect tearing and resultant separation of the web portions at each line of weakening, and a rewinder for drawing on the separated web portions and winding them into separate rolls. In the event tearing does not occur readily along the lines of weakening, there are knives to assist in separating the web portions.