Journal chill's Journal: Brother P-Touch QL-500 on Linux 1
Just a quick entry because I couldn't find a fix for this issue anywhere online.
Under Linux, using Ubuntu 15.04 and 15.10, my USB-connected Brother QL-500 label printer is detected automatically and available out-of-the-box, no driver install necessary. Very nice.
I tried printing under Glabels and all I got was a flashing LED on the printer. The Brother website has a similar error under Windows, claiming this is caused by a mismatch between the label actually loaded in the printer and the setting in the driver. This was not the issue. I have DK-1201 address labels loaded, and the driver is set to 29 x 90 mm, which is also the template I'm using in Glabels.
In the driver (Printers app, Properties, Printer Options), there is a button labeled "Label Preamble". This is on by default and is the culprit. Un-check that box and the printer should now print properly.
Update (Score:2)
A quick update. The CUPS driver included with Ubuntu (1.3-8) didn't work. It did everything except print. All I would get is a blank label advance.
Downloading the official LPR driver and CUPS Wrapper .deb packages from Brother did the trick. It doesn't matter that they're 32-bit, they worked fine.
Now my little QL-500 prints address labels like a champ (again)!
P.S. -- The free TrueType OCR-A and OCR-B fonts are good to use if you want to make life just a tad easier on your Post Office.