Use Python to print labels with Dymo LabelWriter 450 Turbo

02 Mar 2015 Matteo Mattei python dymo labels

Dymo is a leading company for label printing. Altought several things can be done using their DYMO Label v.8 Software, I found that there was no way to set a specific date in a label layout so that every time I need to print a label I have the current date plus 30 days. I read the manual and I found that to do it we have to use a variable field but this is something that has to be handled using an external program.

So I wrote a little python tool that runs on Windows 7 and that does exactly what I need. Make sure to install pywin32 since we are going to use COM apis.

This is my example label (my.label) and the related Python code:

As you can see I have two fields in the XML with IsVariable set to True and I have assigned to them the name TEXT1 and TEXT2. Now, all the logic happens between line 30 and line 41 of the Python script.

• I initialize the Dispatch for the printer, configure the label I want to use (mylabel) and then I select the printer [lines 30-34].
• Then I apply my rules to the variables TEXT1 and TEXT2 [lines 36-37].
• And finally I launch the print job [lines 39-41].

That’s all! With only few lines of Python code we are able to print a label using our Dymo LabelWriter 450 Turbo printer.

Note: the full code is available on GitHub including the scripts to build a self-contained executable.