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GTD with a Mac label maker?

multipart/mixed: Turbo-Charging the Dymo LabelWriter

Dymo LabelWriter 330

I love my Brother PT-65, which is regarded by many as the unofficial official label maker of GTD nerds (and which, quizzically, appears to have been discontinued :-().

The PT-65 has easily paid back its modest sticker price with three years of faithful service. Trouble is, I like using it so much that it's gotten to be kind of a pain to pull it out and Blackberry-thumb-type my bajillion labels via its teeny keys. Now, I want something that hooks up to my Mac.

Josh Carter's gotten me interested in the Dymo LabelWriter 330 Turbo via this handy tutorial from late last year, which covers basic setup info, plus a tip on speeding up the creation of a new label with Quicksilver.

Josh has good stuff to say about the 330:

The advantages of the LabelWriter, as I see it:

  • The Dymo software is easy to configure for "power user mode" which eliminates all the extra dialog baggage, and then it's wicked fast to use. (Doubly so with Quicksilver in the mix.)
  • You get to use your computer's nice keyboard. This is especially important for me since I use the Dvorak key layout.
  • The Dymo labels are cheap and look totally pro, even better than a stand-alone label maker.
  • Labels are the same size, so reusing a folder is as simple as sticking a new label over the old one, and it still looks nice.
  • You can use fancy Mac OS X features like printer sharing if needed. (I tried it, it works great.)

Anybody using one of these units or similar? Care to recommend a label maker of any brand that hooks up via USB and works well with Tiger/OS X? I ♥ my little Brother, but I'm ready for Label Maker 2.0!

purplegenie's picture

I went the opposite direction...

I went the opposite direction -- started off with a SmartLabel printer and then tried a stand-alone. For me, there is no substitute for the computer-attached label printer.

I got the stand-alone labeler for Christmas when I switched to the Mac (my SmartLabel printer was so old it didn't have a USB interface, but is still running flawlessly on my mom's old PC), and I found I let labeling chores pile up because using the stand-alone is so much less convenient than the computer-attached labelers. But, (anal alert, here), the real kicker is that the stand-alone labeler makes labels of varying widths, depending on how much text you have. The SmartLabel printer makes them all a nice uniform size -- even more inspiring for keeping things organized. I've just bought a new SmartLabel 410 and won't ever be without a dedicated computer label printer again.

I frequently put critical info on a label and stick it on a 3 x 5 card -- much easier than dealing with printing 3 x 5 cards with my desktop printer.

 
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