Printing shipping labels on a Mac goes wrong in a small number of predictable ways. These are the fixes, including the free ones that don't involve our app.
The settings that decide whether a label comes out at full size, and what to do when it comes out small, sideways or blank instead.
The complete setup: adding a 4x6 paper size, turning off scaling, and handling label PDFs that arrive as a full A4 or Letter page.
Your 4x6 label comes out shrunk in a corner of the page. Here is what causes it on macOS and three ways to get a full-size label on your thermal printer.
A rotated label and a label lying across the top of a Letter page look the same coming out of the printer, and the usual advice fixes one while making the other worse.
Every label blank, every other label blank, or one good label then several blanks — three different faults with three different fixes. How to tell them apart.
One side missing, usually the left. Almost always the unprintable margin in a custom paper size rather than anything wrong with the label or the printer.
The label looks perfect and the scanner refuses it. Scaling, print density and dithering each break a barcode differently — how to tell which one you have.
Grey, patchy or fading within days. Print density, the wrong side of the roll, a dirty print head and thermal paper's own shelf life all look the same.
What the numbers on a roll of labels actually mean, and which of them are the same size wearing different names.
4x6 is 101.6 x 152.4 mm. 100 x 150 mm is near enough the same label; A6 is not the same shape at all. The measurements, and where the difference bites.
Per-model notes for the printers sellers actually own. The macOS steps are similar; the paper sizes and the quirks are not.
Setting the default label size, fixing labels that print sideways or half-size, and what to do when the Rollo spools forever on macOS.
MUNBYN needs a driver on macOS, and the installer gets blocked by default. How to get past that, add the printer, and fix labels that print at the wrong size.
Xprinter sells dozens of model families under many names. Picking the right driver, pairing over Bluetooth, and why the wrong emulation mode garbles your labels.
Most Brother QL printers physically cannot take a 4x6 label. Which models can, which DK roll you need, and how to set it up on macOS.
The 550 series reads a chip in the roll and refuses third-party labels. What that means before you buy, and how to set either model up on macOS.
macOS already ships the CUPS driver a Zebra needs. Setting it up, and the one command that fixes labels drifting or printing at an offset.
Every carrier can produce a 4x6 label. What differs is where the setting hides, what it is called, and whether it sticks.
UPS.com and WorldShip do not offer the same label sizes, and 4x6 quarter-inch variants exist for a reason. Which to pick, and what to do with a Letter page.
FedEx adds a doc-tab that makes the label longer than 4x6, and offers ZPL, EPL and PDF where only one is right for a Mac. How to get a clean 4x6.
Click-N-Ship has a format choice that decides everything, and picking the thermal one on a Mac is where labels start coming out blank. What to select instead.
DHL eCommerce hands you A4 with no thermal option at all. DHL Express has one, buried in settings and defaulting to A4. Which you have decides what to do.
What each platform hands you, what shape it arrives in, and how to get it onto a 4x6 roll.
Etsy gives you a choice of label format, and one of them is the reason your label prints in the corner. How to pick, and how to fix it either way.
eBay hides the 4x6 option on the label page, and the Letter version puts the label sideways near the top. How to find it, and what to do when you can't.
Seller Central lets you pick 4x6 at print time but will not remember it. Where the dropdown is, why FBA box labels differ, and what to do about the repetition.
Vinted has no 4x6 option — every label is an A4 page. Why scaling it down breaks the barcode, and what to do instead on a thermal printer.
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