Buy Now...

The earlier machine was meant for kids both in the colour choice and key size as well as having mobile phone type input. Here in this machine that would look at home in any office - it's grey - with QWERTY keys and a total of 58 keys almost all can produce symbols or accents with the press of a second key.

It is 14x12x5cm and it is close to 600grams. It has an internal rechargeable battery and indeed I used it mainly in this mode. However it comes with a USB lead and power supply as you can attach it to a PC and use it from within Windows.

It comes with a 78 page manual and while most of the things it does are logical a good read of the manual will help not only with how it does certain tasks but also help to explain the whole gamut of things it can do.

See also: Printers

more

This is a very long way from the old style labelling machine where you input each keystroke and it immediately become final, here text, font, style, size - and much more - can be changed right up till you press print.

This unit the P-touch PT-18R can take cassette tapes of 8 metres in length and various widths from 6mm to 18mm, an 18mm tape is included. This can display a single line of text up to 15.8mm tall on the 18mm tape, it can also display up to 5 lines of text in smaller sizes. 12mm tapes can display up to 3 lines, 9mm and 6mm tape up to 2 lines.

All tapes can be printed either horizontal or vertically. The 5.5x2cm LCD display can show 15 characters in either one of two lines, there is a print preview mode. While I am on characters a total of 283 characters can be produced made up of 62 alpha numeric, 102 symbols and 119 accented characters.

There are four fonts built in and you select any three from seven character sizes for L, M, S. There are 12 character styles and the characters can have one of four widths, finally before I stew my brain text on the label can be aligned left, right or centre. If you use it tethered to the PC then any font on the PC can be used.

However you can fit the battery, switch on, type in a label, and, print it accepting the defaults and I expect you will be perfectly satisfied. Now somewhere a couple of paragraphs ago I mentioned 283 characters this includes bar codes so you can produce your own direct from the unit.

If you make the same label regularly then you can save it to save typing. It can also perform semi automatic currency conversions. Sorry one more figure 12 templates are supplied - you can add your own - to do jobs and provide such things as Asset Tags.

The Appendix mentions no less than 99 types of label refills available. I used only the standard white label with black ink but there are Strong Adhesive, Security, Fabric, Flexible and a whole raft of colours available within that 99.

I did connect it to a PC and this allows even more choices but I used it as a standalone unit, it did everything it says it will, and, if you want almost anything from a small battery operated labelling machine then this can probably do it. It has a stated price tag of £129, but retailers may well discount it.

Link www.brother.co.uk/ptouch/index.html