Dymo Labelwriter News

Dymo’s new celebrity spokesperson is Karren Brady. If you’re thinking “WHO???” then join the club, we’d never heard of her either.

According to Dymo, “Karren Brady is spearheading DYMO’s ‘Practically Genius’ campaign which is all about creating moments of genius in the office.”

Having inside knowledge of the potential candidates we can see that Dymo were clearly looking for a powerful, well respected businesswoman who can endorse the Dymo range and will fit well with their new campaign that likens the products to having a personal assistant.

And looking at the background provided in Dymo’s press release they have certainly picked a powerful well respected businesswoman. But we’re just wondering if the average office worker would have a clue who she was. We certainly didn’t. Her picture looked vaguely familiar but her name didn’t ring any bells at all.

According to Dymo “Karren Brady was the youngest ever Managing Director of a PLC in the UK at Birmingham City Football Club, turning the clubs fortunes around between 1993-2009. Karren has been named as one of the most powerful women in the world by Cosmopolitan magazine and was named the Business Woman of the Year in 2007.”

So if you’re a cosmo reader, city bigwig, or Birmingham City fan you probably know who she is, but for the rest of us the choice is somewhat of a mystery. We favoured the other candidate whose name we probably shouldn’t mention, but would have been instantly recognisable to most people with a TV – and she’s a very well respected business woman as well (and no, not one of the Dragons).

However, Karren is due to become Lord Alan Sugar’s new right hand woman, replacing Margaret Mountford, in the new series of The Apprentice, so maybe that will help people to know who she is…

We finally have an answer from Dymo as to why some versions of the Labelwriter 320 & 310′s aren’t supported by the new Windows 7 and Vista drivers, while other versions of the same printers are.

Apparently, it’s all down to the usb chipset. It looks like Microsoft may have dropped support for an older USB chipset that is used by some of the old labelwriter printers, and this means that the new OS’s simply can’t detect the hardware – even if emulating XP in a virtual machine.

So that’s pretty final for those unsupported models – the OS simply can’t detect that the labeller is attached because it just doesn’t recognise the particular USB chipset. This means that we can be pretty sure that if it’s not supported now it won’t be supported by any future drivers that may be released.

There are a couple of solutions for those with unsupported printers, as previously mentioned here:

Vista & Windows 7 solutions for unsupported Labelwriter 320 / 310 Machines

Dymo Label Printers have posted a useful page of information covering the use of the old labelwriters with Vista and Windows 7.

As previously reported here the Dymo Labelwriter 310 driver for Windows 7 & Vista does not support all of the 300 series printers. Dymo Label Printers have proposed a few solutions, but rather than repeat them here you can read them for yourself:

Solutions for unsupported labelwriters with Windows 7 & Vista

The Free Starter Kit Offer which was always popular with the old LabelWriter 400 machines is now available on the LabelWriter 450′s – or at least on the Turbo, Twin and Duo models. It is not availalble on the standard LW450 printer.

The Starter Kit contains a variety of labels and a spare spool (useful for swapping labels more quickly).

Dymo Label Printers have a batch of old Labelwriter Turbos in stock, which they’re selling off cheap.

These were discontinued several months back and replaced by the new LW450 turbos. But if you have a specific requirement for the LW400 (for compatibility purposes, or because you have an installed base of 400′s for example) then now’s the time to grab one before the stocks run out.

They are priced below the cost of the standard LW450 model and the old turbo is still slightly faster than the new standard model. Apart from the speed the only advantage in buying the new model is the slightly increased resolution and better software – but you can download the new software for your old printer so that doesn’t really matter…

Anyhoo, get them while you can.

The 30 day Money Back Guarantee offer finishes on the 31st March 2010.

Ao if you aren’t sure if the Labelwriter will do what you want now is your last chance to give one a whirl for upto 30 days – and if it doesn’t do what you want then you can return for a full refund.

T&C: Return requests must be made by calling the Dymo Helpdesk to get instructions on how to return the product(s). The Dymo helpdesk can be reached at 020 7341 55 29. For the refund, you will need to provide a copy of your original invoice, as well as your bank account details. They must be in their original state including manuals, software, accessories, cables, etc. in their original packaging. DYMO will refund the goods through a bank transfer within 4 weeks after receipt.

The new Extra-Wide LabelWriter – the 4XL – has now been launched in the UK. With the new 4XL Extra Large Shipping Labels this printer is ideal for printing the large shipping labels used by couriers such as DHL and UPS, so should be a hit with e-bayer’s and small business customers.

We’re still wating to hear back on compatibility with the couriers software, and we’ll let you know when we find out.

In the mean time these are available here – LabelWriter 4XL – and if purchased there before 31st March there is a 30 day Money Back Guarantee, which basically lets you try it out for 30 days and return to Dymo for a refund if you don’t like it.

It’s compatible with Vista and Windows 7 as well as the usual suspects.

The Extrawide Labelwriter 4XL is now available in the UK. These are ideal for printing extra large shipping labels and is compatible with

Dymo has reintroduced it’s 30 day money back guarantee on the LabelManager and LabelWriter 450 range of label printers. This allows you to test the LabelWriter to see if it does what you want, and to make sure it’s compatible with your software.

The usual T&C’s apply – you need to keep all the bits, and the box, and obviously don’t mistreat it. If you decide you don’t want it anymore then call Dymo for instructions on how to return it. They’ll then refund the money to your bank account.

The refund doesn’t include the original shipping charges, so make sure to buy from an online store that has free shipping!

Applies to products purchased in Q1 2010. For details and a full list of qualifying products click here: LabelWriter 450 – 30 Day Money Back Guarantee

The Dymo Software Development Kit (SDK) can now be downloaded here:

Dymo Windows SDK
Dymo Mac SDK

The Dymo SDK allows the easy integration of label printing into your applications. Features such as barcodes, text curving & rotation, graphics resizing etc are available to make powerful labelling functions available to you with minimum coding.

(For developers only)