Zebra

Zebra - Printer Cartridges & Toner

It doesn't matter if you are in the car park or the department store, at the airport or at a concert: in all of these places each of us has probably been given and held a printout that came from a printer made by the company Zebra Technologies without being aware of who this manufacturer is. A company that hardly any consumers know, but whose products almost no one can escape.

Zebra Technologies: the company

The American technology company Zebra Technologies started in 1969 as a manufacturer of electromechanical high-speed products. In 1982 the company switched its focus to label printers and card printers, and since 1986 it has traded as Zebra Technologies Corporation.

The products from Zebra Technologies are used in about 100 countries around the world. According to information from the manufacturer, over 90% of the Fortune 500 companies already use Zebra printers that support a variety of applications. Since 2008, the manufacturing of the printers has almost been completely outsourced to a factory in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.

Zebra printers used worldwide

Zebra Technologies Corporation produces all types of thermal printers, amongst other things. Examples of their uses include: Bar code labels, smart labels and documents that are used, not exclusively, but primarily in the logistics sector. Zebra Technologies Corporation also offers plastic card printers and RFID printers and encoders for transmitting RFID stickers that allow flows of goods to be better monitored and coordinated. Furthermore, the company also offers its business customers mobile solutions and rounds out its portfolio with software, networking solutions, and thermal printing expendable items.

For example, Zebra printers in the iMZ series for mobile use with smartphones and tablets are certified and print payment documents, tickets, etc., that were previously created on the iPhone or iPad, or on Android, Windows Mobile or Blackberry devices.

In short: There are many possibilities to which we, the customers of the customers of the special printer manufacturer Zebra Technologies come into contact with their thermal printers or at least with their printouts. They print out customer receipts at the cashier, address labels in the office, tickets at concert or cinema box offices, tickets for buses and trains and many other tickets; they generate the waiting numbers in offices or at customer service as well as armbands for patients in hospitals; store cards, name tags, lift passes...

Printers with their own programming language

Rather than toner or ink as the expendable material, depending on the printing process (thermal transfer or thermal direct) the thermal printers from Zebra Technologies need special thermal-sensitive paper (turns black when heated) or special wax, wax/resin and resin ink ribbons whose colour is transferred to sturdy printing paper when melted. Thus, the portfolio already includes rollers adjusted to the printer with, for example, labels, special receipt paper for thermal printing processes, ink ribbons, and also printable armbands (even with antibacterial coating), plastic cards and smart cards, for which additional special ink ribbons and laminating materials are offered.

The printers from Zebra Technologies use their own programming language with the name "Zebra Programming Language" (ZPL). With this printer description language and application programs based on it such as ZebraDesigner Pro, by comparison the users of special Zebra printers can simply design individual labels and stickers on their own with the expendable materials provided and then give out the required printouts at the printing location.