Zebra Desktop Printer is powerful in event onsite badge printing. This tutorial will guide you through the setup of EventNook badge printing with Zebra ZD500 and ZD620.

The whole setup mainly consists of two parts:

You can click on the hyperlinks to navigate to the respective sections. Here is a video walkthrough of the whole process:

We also have several reminders for you during the setup process, click on the following hyperlinks to check them out.

Printer Setup

Printopia Software Settings

There are three possible media types you can use for this printer: the ones with black marks (Mark Sensing), and others with punched holes or gaps (Web Sensing), and continuous labels (Continuous). Zebra comes with a sensor that can identify both of these marks and therefore knows where to stop printing.

To select your media type, go to the SETTINGS of your printer; in MEDIA TYPE, select:

You also need to move the sensor on the printer to under the gap/notch, or black mark (This does not apply to CONTINUOUS in which case you need to set the Print Length).

This Zebra printer supports two ways of printing — Direct Thermal and Thermal Transfer. Direct Thermal requires the labels or badges to be heat-sensitive, while Thermal Transfer requires an ink, toner, or ribbon.

Only the Thermal Transfer method will require a ribbon. If this is the case for you, the following video will show you how to install and uninstall a ribbon.

The Top and Left position settings allow you to make minor adjustments to the top and left sides of your labels. It is suitable for some last-minute changes.

You can refer to Zebra Support for a detailed explanation.

The print width controls the maximum width of the printed label. The default setting is the full width. Ideally, you do not need to change anything. If the printer width is too small, your badge content may be cut off. You can adjust accordingly if this happens.

Tear-Off adjustment allows more accurate label positioning.

After calibration, we can make minor changes to the label position by using TEAR OFF in SETTINGS. To adjust, press (-) to pull the label back into the printer, and (+) to push the labels out. We have a short video to explain this if it seems confusing to you:

Note: You can also adjust the Darkness and Print Speed in SETTINGS. They might affect the quality of your badges and the smoothness of your check-in process. We recommend setting DARKNESS to 28 and PRINT SPEED to 4 to ensure the best performance.

Printopia is a powerful and user-friendly tool for wireless printing. There are a few things to set up in this software to ensure your badge sizes and other parameters are correct.

DPI stands for Dots Per Inch. It is the measure of the printing resolution; the higher the DPI, the higher the resolution of your printed badges.

To set up the DPI, go to Settings - Paper Handling - Resolution in Printopia. For Zebra ZD500 Printers, we recommend selecting 203 DPI. For Zebra ZD620 Printers, we recommend selecting 300 DPI.

You will need to set the paper size according to the specific paper you use. Usual badge sizes are 4' × 6' or 4' × 5'.

To change your Paper Size, go to Settings - Paper Handling - Paper Size.