For over 16 years, users of desktop label printers have been agonizing with the constant need to manually change label rolls just so they can print different sized labels. Were talking about the little desktop label printers here, like the Dymo LabelWriter. These small label printers connect up to a PC or Mac and enable the user to quickly print a single label, or labels by the hundred.

Labels for these printers are supplied on rolls, and the labels are precut to certain sizes. The most common label size used in these personal/desktop label printers is the Address or Shipping label. People naturally use these label sizes for addressing their letters or packages, but many owners of these personal label printers also like to print labels for other uses. Other uses could be for filing, product identification, name badges, CD labels, price tags, and so on.

So the problem has always been that when you want to change to a different size label, you had to remove the current roll, insert the new roll, print your labels, then you would most likely put the original roll back in because that is the size you use the most - and it just makes sense to have that roll in your label print most of the time.

A perfect example would be a Dentist that prints labels for letters that are mailed to its patients, but also requires a label to be put on each new patient's dental file. You could imagine the secretary changing rolls of labels say 10 times a day, or maybe it's 20 times or 30 times?.. who knows? it could be 100 times a day. Each time a new patient arrives the secretary would need to remove say the Address labels from the printer, load the File Folder' labels, print the label for the patients file, then put the Address labels back in so she can continue sending mail pieces to patients and suppliers.

This whole process takes time, and it sort of makes nonsense of the fact that the label printer was supposed to be saving time - not wasting because the rolls are constantly being changed.

Thus, a real solution was need for those users who regularly use more than one label size.

Enter the Dymo LabelWriter Twin Turbo. This little baby is actually 2 label printers in the one chassis. You get to load it up with 2 different label rolls, meaning that you won't need to be swapping out rolls of labels as often. And choosing which roll you want to print to is easy - you just specify left or right. It's that simple.

Getting back to the Dentist example (and let's assume that a Dymo LabelWriter Twin Turbo was now being used), the secretary would have a roll of Address labels and also a roll of File Folder labels loaded up in the Dymo machine, both rolls ready to go. When an Address label is required for a letter that needs to be mailed, the secretary just prints the label. When a File Folder label is required, the secretary just prints the label. There's no need to stop the workflow and manually load a new roll of labels - having both rolls loaded up in the printer simultaneously just saved a whole lot of time and aggravation.

The 16 year old problem has now been solved. And by the way, the Dymo LabelWriter Twin Turbo can print over 50 labels per minute, on over 30 different labels sizes, it can print postage stamps and it doesn't use an ink cartridge or toner or a ribbon.

Sally Green is the PR Manager for Labelcity. Labelcity is a specialist supplier of Dymo, CoStar and Seiko Label Printers, Supplies and labeling Software, with over 16 years experience and well over 40,000 customers.