Shopify producing low quality shipping labels yet Shipstation is crisp

eastwood
Tourist
7 0 3

We've been using our Zebra printer 4x6 thermal labels for years via Shipstation for other products. Recently we added our Shopify store and now print the necessary labels directly through the interface. 

In comparison, the Shopify labels look low quality and compressed, whereas the ones printed via Shipstation (hooked to a non Shopify ecommerce site) are very crisp. In both instances, the printer settings are the same - 203 dpi, 4x6 thermal, printing from PDF. We have increased the dpi to 600 but the quality is the same. I even set up Chrome to save the PDFs, then open them via adobe reader but it didnt make a difference. My thought is Shopify is compressing the shipping label PDFs too much and thus creating a low quality label. 

This is not a huge inconvenience, but when you see the packages side by side, it looks like the difference between a cheap home printer job versus a quality print shop. 

What can we do?

Replies 6 (6)

KaiborgStudios
Tourist
9 0 1

Hey Eastwood, did you ever find a solution to this? I use a Rollo thermal printer and the detail text on international shipping labels are nearly illegible they're so low resolution.

FurnaceX
Shopify Partner
49 2 48

Any update? Any solution? 

tpilews
Visitor
1 0 0

Just opened a Shopify account and shipped my first label. I was surprised how bad the print quality was. I've purchased labels through USPS, Etsy, and several return labels from UPS and FedEx. We have a Rollo printer and the Shopify labels are by far the lowest quality.

Dandruff
Tourist
6 0 1

I have the same problem with my Zebra ZD620 printer, the USPS labels print clearly, but the International labels are blurry and look like a bad photocopy. I have tried everything but it is only on the International. They are unusable unless I print on paper.

I have also tried printing via Ethernet, Bluetooth, and wireless all with the same result.

I am using MacOS Ventura, and the only thing that I think will work is Penninsula Software Thermal print system which is 97 GBP...

But I can't be the only one having this issue, right?

wiremonkey
Tourist
5 0 0

Anyone make any progress on this? It's clearly a problem with how Shopify processes or compresses the international label graphic. I end up touching up addresses with a sharpy by hand and have certainly had packages not make their destination due to illegible print quality. 

DavidNZSSI
Pathfinder
100 6 13

As Eastwood originally mentioned, third-party shipping apps are one way around the low resolution label issue. You can use platforms like Starshipit to print high-quality shipping labels (individually, in bulk or automatically) as well as all the the important shipping documents. Hope this helps – I know it's not the easiest approach!