Technical Document
EnglishDrivers by Seagull™
HIGH-PERFORMANCE PRINTING FEATURESFOR USE WITH BARTENDER®
SUPPORTS: BARTENDER ® 2019 AND LATER VERSIONSContentsOverview
Understanding Printer Drivers
Embedded Printer Drivers
Windows Printer Drivers
Drivers by Seagull
Using Drivers by Seagull with BarTender
Printer-based Serialization
Printer-based Barcodes
Printer-encoded RFID Tags, Smart Cards and Magnetic Stripes
Printer-based Real-Time Clock
Printer-based Optimizations
Caching of Graphics and Printer Code Templates
Additional Features of Drivers by Seagull
Advanced Status Monitor Support
Convenient display of status information
Success verification
Special Font Functions
Barcode and RFID fonts
Printer command fonts
Driver command fonts
Downloaded fonts
Advanced Media Handling
Logging Functions
Printer Configuration and Diagnostics
Printer Driver Administration
International Language Support
Appendix A: Using Printer-based Fonts in Microsoft Word

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Related Documentation

11Overview
Drivers by Seagull™ bring standard printing functionality to any Windows program.
Although Drivers by Seagull work with any correctly-written Windows application, when you use themwith our BarTender design and print software, you can take advantage of special high-performance
printing features that are not typically accessible to other Windows programs.
Seagull Scientific was the very first company to design Windows drivers for label printers. Over theyears, we have added support for a variety of printing technologies, including color label printers,
card printers, RFID and smart card encoding, industrial marking and coding systems, and more.
Today, we are the world’s largest developer of such drivers and proud to be the official driver
supplier to many well-known printer manufacturers. Drivers by Seagull are widely recognized as thefastest and most reliable Windows drivers in the world, which is why so many printer manufacturers
ship them in the box with their printers.

Drivers by Seagull™

3Understanding Printer Drivers
Drivers are special software modules that are used by programs to communicate with hardware andsoftware. The main job of a printer driver is to translate the graphic control commands that aregenerated by your programs into commands that are understood by your printer. Also, if a printeroffers status information, a full-featured printer driver can make that information available toWindows and certain other programs.
There are two kinds of printer drivers in today's industry: embedded printer drivers and Windows
printer drivers (such as Drivers by Seagull).

Embedded Printer Drivers
Before Microsoft created open driver standards for Windows, most of a program’s printing functions
were locked (or “embedded”) inside the program and could be used only by that program. Some
industrial printing programs still use embedded printing methods. In these applications, the driver
does not let other Windows applications use the printer, and it cannot be managed from theWindows printer directory.

Windows Printer Drivers
Windows printer drivers (such as Drivers by Seagull) are installed on a computer or network and areshared by a number of printing applications. Windows printer drivers make it possible for you to use
standard Windows functions to set print access rights, configure printers, monitor job queues anddelete print jobs.
Applications that are designed to use Windows printer drivers automatically have access to theWindows print spooler, Print Manager, advanced printer port control, high-speed network printing,extended font capabilities and additional Microsoft-provided features and functions.

Drivers by Seagull
Drivers by Seagull expand on Windows printing architecture by providing access to advanced printerfeatures such as serialization, native barcode printing and RFID support.

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Using Drivers by Seagull with BarTender
When you use Drivers by Seagull together with BarTender, you get exclusive access to additional
printer optimizations and advanced features that are unavailable with other applications. These
include device barcodes, RFID support, smart card encoding, caching functionality and device
serialization. (Some features, such as font downloading and caching, depend on sufficient memory
being available in the printer.)
For more information about how to use fonts and Drivers by Seagull to improve print performance,
refer to the Optimizing Print Performance technical document:
https://www.seagullscientific.com/resources/white-papers/
The following high speed printer optimizations and advanced features are available only when you
use BarTender.

Printer-based Serialization
In print jobs that include serial numbers, many printers can accept a starting value and theincremental step size. When you use this printer-based serialization, you can print a large number ofserialized items without having to send any data after the first label.

Printer-based Barcodes
Printers that have built-in barcode functionality make it possible for software programs to request
complex barcodes by using simple text strings (such as “1234”). This process is much faster thansending bitmap images (or pictures) of barcodes that consume hundreds or thousands of extra
bytes per printed item. (When you use software other than BarTender, our driver fonts give you some
limited functionality.)

Printer-encoded RFID Tags, Smart Cards and Magnetic Stripes
Printers that have built-in RFID encoders make it possible for you to encode RFID tags while items
are printed. When you use Drivers by Seagull, BarTender can present a simplified user interface forusers to supply the data to be encoded in the tags. (When you use software other than BarTender,
our driver fonts give you some limited functionality.)
Drivers by Seagull also support the encoding of data into magnetic stripes and both types of smart
card memory:lContactless (or RFID)l

Contact (or “touch”)

Printer-based Real-Time Clock
Printers that have a built-in real-time clock can print the time and date in a text object, barcode or
RFID tag. When you use Drivers by Seagull, BarTender can present a simplified user interface forusers to access the printer’s clock.

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Printer-based Optimizations
When the printer supports optimizations, BarTender and Drivers by Seagull can send all of therequired text, barcode and graphic formatting commands just one time at the beginning of a print job
and then send only the variable character data for each item to be printed.
Furthermore, many printers can store the unchanging parts of your template design at the start of a
print job, so that they do not have to be re-sent with each item to be printed.

Caching of Graphics and Printer Code Templates
Most printers allow for templates and graphics to be stored indefinitely in the printer for reuse at any
future time. Drivers by Seagull take advantage of these features to implement automatic graphic
and template caching. So, whether you specify a graphic that changes, specify a graphic that stays
the same for several different documents, or print several different templates, our drivers can cache
this information in your printer to allow for faster printing.

Drivers by Seagull™

6Additional Features of Drivers by Seagull
Drivers by Seagull offer a variety of features that are available to all Windows applications. Theseadvanced features may not be available in other drivers that are available for your printer.

Advanced Status Monitor Support
By using bidirectional printer communication (“bi-di”), many printer drivers can report basic
conditions such as “printer offline” and “toner low” to the Windows spooler. Drivers by Seagull canreport a great variety of status conditions. These range from the basic (such as ribbon and label out)
to the more advanced (such as a print-head temperature error).

Convenient display of status information
You do not have to use BarTender or the Printer Maestro companion application to view
enhanced printer status information. Just install the appropriate Drivers by Seagull printer driver
on a client computer, and the status of the printer appears in the following locations:lYour computer's Devices and Printers folderlYour printer's Print Queue windowl

Your computer's notification area ("system tray")

Success verification
By using the status monitor functionality for Drivers by Seagull, you can pause for successverification at each printed page or job. This feature is helpful in heavily regulated environments,
such as the medical and pharmaceutical industries.
For more information about the status monitor functions of our drivers, refer to the Status Monitoring
technical document:
https://www.seagullscientific.com/resources/white-papers/

Special Font Functions
By simulating certain features as fonts, Drivers by Seagull can give conventional Windows programs
limited access to some printer features that they would otherwise not be able to use.

Barcode and RFID fonts
Drivers by Seagull let your conventional Windows programs access some of your printer’s built-in
barcode and RFID functions as fonts.

Printer command fonts
When you specify “Printer Command Font” as the font for a text string, you can use Drivers bySeagull to embed any printer-specific code sequence directly into your document.

Driver command fonts
When you specify “Driver Command Font” as the font for a text string, Drivers by Seagull let yourprograms control drawing functions (such as lines, boxes, circles or ellipses) and print settings

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(such as mirror or inverse) if they are available in your printer.

Downloaded fonts
The fastest way to print text is by using a printer’s built-in fonts. However, no printer offers the fullvariety of font styles that are available in Windows. Drivers by Seagull can download fonts from
Windows into printers that support doing so. Depending on the capabilities of your printer, youcan download these fonts as TrueType fonts or as bitmap fonts. Your Windows programs canthen print items with these fonts as quickly and easily as if they had been built into the printer.
For more information about how to use fonts and Drivers by Seagull to improve print
performance, refer to the Optimizing Print Performance technical document:
https://www.seagullscientific.com/resources/white-papers/

Advanced Media Handling
Drivers by Seagull support a variety of actions that are taken at specified intervals in the print job.
You can incorporate these actions (such as cutting the label stock or detecting that a label wasremoved) in a print job in addition to settings such as "number of labels." By using Drivers by Seagull,
you can use your printer's cutters and sensors, including the label taken sensor.

Logging FunctionsDrivers by Seagull can generate log files for the following types of information:lll

General print job information, including job name, time, date and user
Events that occur during the print job, such as job start, pause, restart, delete, out of labels,
complete and more
The actual print code that was used to generate the job

Printer Configuration and Diagnostics
By using Drivers by Seagull, you can perform printer management functions that otherwise require
you to use the printer’s front panel and/or a custom program from the printer manufacturer. These
functions include the following:lPrinting a variety of test and diagnostic itemslCalibrating the printerl

Reading the printer’s configurationlManaging files that are stored in the printerlConfiguring and formatting printer memory

Printer Driver Administration
Drivers by Seagull provide convenient functions to import and export driver settings. These functions
make it possible for you to export a variety of printer settings, stock specifications and otherinformation from one driver and then import these items to another driver for another printer. Thisfeature simplifies the administration of large numbers of printers.

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For example, Drivers by Seagull offer a command-line interface that you can use to automate theimporting and exporting of driver settings without using the drivers’ Windows dialogs. And, by
replacing the default configuration settings for a driver installation package with settings that you
have exported, you can even create your own fully-configured driver installation packages.

International Language Support
You can configure the user interface of Drivers by Seagull to be displayed in any of the more than 20
languages that are supported by the BarTender user interface. You can then view and set yourprinter options in a familiar language.

Drivers by Seagull™

9Appendix A: Using Printer-based Fonts in Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word supports printing with printer-based fonts. When you use Word to print your items byusing a printer-based font, you enter text in that font into your document, and the printer then prints
the text or converts it to a graphic or a different encoding, depending on the font. If you are using abarcode font, when you print the item, the text is converted to a barcode. This process eliminates
the need to import a graphic file that contains the barcode symbol into Word for printing.

Microsoft no longer supports the use of printer-based fonts in otherprograms such as Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access.

To make printer-based fonts available for use in Word, you must select the Use fonts that are stored
on the printer option. After you do this, the printer-based fonts are listed in the Font list in Word.
To select this option, follow these steps:
1. In Word, click File, and then click Options.
2. In the left navigation pane of the Word Options dialog, click Advanced.
3. Under Show document content, click to select the Use fonts that are stored on the printercheck box, and then click OK.
To use Drivers by Seagull to add a new barcode font to your printer's list of already available printerbased fonts, follow these steps:
1. On the driver's Properties page, click the Fonts tab.
2. Click Font, and then click New Bar Code Font.
3. In the Bar Code Font dialog, enter a font name in the Font Name field, select the symbologythat you want in the Symbology list, configure the other settings as needed, and then click OK.
When the Use fonts that are stored on the printer check box is selected in Word, the new fontappears together with the other printer-based fonts in the Font list in Word.

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Related Documentation
Technical DocumentslInstalling Drivers by Seagull™

l

Optimizing Print PerformancelStatus MonitoringlPrinter Maestro

To view and download technical documents, visit:https://www.seagullscientific.com/resources/white-papers/

User GuideslGetting Started with BarTender
https://support.seagullscientific.com/hc/categories/200267887

Other Resources
Please visit the BarTender website at https://www.seagullscientific.com.

© 2020 Seagull Scientific, Inc. BarTender, Intelligent Templates, Drivers by Seagull, the BarTenderlogo, and the Drivers by Seagull logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Seagull Scientific,Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Version 2020-10-30 Copyright © 2020 Seagull Scientific, Inc.