Carl Valentin Labelstar Office

Labelstar Office is Carl Valentin’s own program for designing and printing labels. Objects are placed by drag and drop; text is formatted with markup tags; the common barcode types are built in, and so are all GHS hazard symbols. Data can come straight from a database — Access, Excel, SQL, ODBC, text or XML files, and since version 7 also MySQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL and Oracle — and from a wide range of printer and system variables.

The free Lite edition is meant for simple labels: TrueType fonts, 1D barcodes, BMP images and the basic variables (date, time, counter, user input). Standard opens up the full toolset — printer fonts, 2D and GS1 barcodes, more than 90 image formats, over 30 variables, databases, logging, memory-card support, label export (SAPscript ITF, PDF, image) and the printers’ own CVPL protocol.

Four add-on programs, licensed separately, cover printing on the shop floor: Quick Print (print from a browser interface), Print Form (one screen with a live label preview), Print Manager, and Folder Monitor, which prints automatically from a simple file interface to your business software. Version 7 needs new licence numbers; the upgrade from 6.x is chargeable.