How to print on a thermal roll printer

Choosing the printer, telling the driver the paper size, the test print, and nudging the print until it sits inside the label edges.

6 steps about 8 minutes Last updated September 28, 2026

Steps

Open Print

Press Print in the editor, or select a label in the Library and press Print as is.
Pick the printer

Choose your roll printer in the Printer list. LabelVault remembers the last one used for that label.
Leave "Tell the driver the paper size is the label size" ticked

This is what stops a roll printer feeding a whole page per label or printing blank. On a Brother QL the box is greyed out instead: DK labels are already a fixed size, so LabelVault uses whichever roll the printer says is loaded.
Turn on pure black and white

Thermal printers cannot print grey. Pure black & white (thermal printer) gives the sharpest bars and the cleanest text.
Run a test print

Test print puts an alignment box on one label so you can see exactly where the printer is putting the image.
Nudge it until it sits right

Use Shift right and Shift down, in millimetres, until the box sits inside the label edges. The adjustment is saved per printer on this PC, so you only do it once.

Printer adjustments are stored per printer, not per label, so every label you print on that printer inherits them.
If the Print window says the printer is set to one size but your label is another, the roll loaded is not the one the label was made for. Change the roll, or set the right stock in the printer preferences in Windows — LabelVault cannot override a Brother QL on that point, and nor should it.