DYMO Label Printers

[ccirelli]

Hi,

I have some Windows clients running FM 8.5 v2. I just set up a DYMO label printer on our network using a print server. It is accessible via Word, Dymo's included label application, and FileMaker. The Dymo software & drivers have been installed on four workstations, for the time being.

The problem is - FileMaker will not hold Print Setup settings for this device. Not only within scripts - but also if I simply to go File > Print Setup, configure the Dymo's settings, and hit OK... even if I simply go back into Print Setup - settings are reverted back to the machine's default printer and settings.

What's odd is, in the Print dialog box - the settings seem to hold within the printer's Properties settings, and as long as the user doesn't change these settings... they hold until the user logs out. But here again, these settings will not hold within a script.

Has anyone else come across this problem? My next step is to upgrade these clients to FM9, which I have to do anyway.

Thanks,

Craig

UPDATE: After some more digging, I've realized this problem seems to be a Windows bug in FileMaker. Although, I have other scripts that hold settings just fine - but they are always using their default laser printer. This is the first time (since using v6..) that I'm switching to a different printer.

Any solutions / advice would be much appreciated, so I'll leave this post up for a while.

Thanks again-

Edited March 13, 2008 by Guest

[Ted S]

Craig,

I tried to use a Dymo labeler about a year ago and ran into the same problems you are having. I never did figure out how to get it to work directly with Filemaker so I just export the records to Excel. The Dymo printer takes to Excel like a duck takes to water.

I fiddled around trying to get FM to work with Dymo for a couple hours and then just gave up. There may be an answer but I didn't find it.

[ccirelli]

Thanks Ted,

I'm following your lead. Guess we're at the mercy of FileMaker on this one.

So, my solution: on my existing labels layout, I created a little button in the upper-right hand corner of each label. This button triggers a script that simply copies the content of the field for that given label to the user's clipboard.

A quick alt-tab into the Dymo application (which is actually quite a decent app) followed by a "paste" and "print" button - and they have a label. Quite a few clicks less than FileMaker's Print dialog. And, I've saved the effort of creating a new Dymo layout for each of the labels.

What's nice about the Dyno app is that when the user pastes the copied address into the label, the text format of the saved label is retained.

Good enough for now. Let's hope this bug is confirmed & fixed very soon.

[Ted S]

It sounds like a decent workaround.

I believe that the Dymo folks offered an Application Programming Interface that may work with FM but I didn't have the time to investigate.

[Reed]

I've been using a Dymo 330 with filemaker with v8 8.5 and 9 and it still holds the settings for scripts I created back in v8. The problem I notice now is that when I try to make a new label layout and change the print setup, I run into the same problems that you have seen. Hopefully this is fixed before I ever need to make a new layout for printing labels....

I'm not sure if the bug was introduced with a certain version of FMP, or a version of windows, or a version of the printer driver.