Integrated Label Designer: Create a Label Template

FlexiBake has a label designer built-in, giving you the option to take control of how your labels look and the information they display. There's no limit to the number of templates that you can create, so if you want to create a unique label for each product, you can!

Once you have completed your label template(s), you can choose to print them directly out of FlexiBake using your sheet or label printer, or you can download a bitmap version of the label to provide to your printing company. FlexiBake has multiple ways to mass-print labels, so check out our informational article Product Label Printing Options to see which way works best for you.

Label Setup

Before you can design your labels, you'll need to setup the dimensions and other formatting information to ensure that they are scaled and printed correctly. This can be done using the following steps.

1.  In the Inventory Centre click on the Labels button.                                                                                                                                      
2. This will open the Maintain Labels screen. Click on New in the bottom left to start creating a new template. 
3. The Label Setup tab in the Design New Label window will be displayed. Before you can design your label, you must set up the designer to match the specifications of your label and printer. 
   • Name - This is how your label will be listed when selecting labels to print. If you plan to use multiple label types it's a good idea to add a keyword or description to distinguish them
   • Category - (Optional) Label categories are user-defined. You may want want to categorize labels based on their size, the printer they use or the info they display, or for specific product or customer categories. You can create a new label category by clicking Category, which will open a pop-up. Click New, then enter a name for the category in the dialog box. Click OK in both the dialog box and the pop-up to save the category.                
   • Printer - Select the default printer that will be used to print this label. Please ensure that the printer type is compatible with the label stock you will select below.
   • Label Stock - Select if your labels will printed using a roll of labels or sheets of labels. Please ensure that your selected default printer is compatible with the stock type.
   • Units -  Select the units of measurement you will use to enter the dimensions of your labels.
   • Dimensions - Please see the packaging of your label stock for the dimension information. Once this is entered, the layout preview on the right should accurately reflect your label stock.
   • Orientation - Select if the labels should be printed using portrait or landscape orientation.    
4. Click OK in the top right to save this information. The Label Design tab will now be available       
5. Click on the Label Design tab to open the integrated label designer.            

Features of the Label Designer

The label designer includes tools designed to help with the alignment and formatting of the label elements. You can mix and match the settings on these features to find the work environment that is best for you. These features are:

• Zoom - When working with small or large labels, you can resize the view by selecting a zoom amount from the Zoom drop-down. The margin rulers will scale accordingly.
• Grid - When the Grid box is selected, the label will be overlaid by a grid of dots to help you ensure that labels elements are aligned.
• X-hair - When the X-hair box is selected, your cursors position will be accompanied by a cross-hair. This can help you align label elements by showing your cursor position on the margin rulers.
• Snap - When the Snap box is selected, label elements will automatically align to a grid position, allowing you to make sure that positions are even and perfectly aligned.

Label Elements

When printing your labels, chance are that you want to include your company's name, the product's name and an ingredient list with allergen information at the very least. If you want to go further, you can add your logo, best-before/use-by/sell-by date, a barcode, a promotional image of the product, or package weight to name a few.

There are 6 buttons in the label designer:

  Text Box

Click this button to add a single line text box to the label.  (e.g. Product Name). This will bring up the ‘Set Text Properties’ window where you can enter the following information:                                                                                                      

• Data Source - Select the information you would like have appear in that text box from the drop-down list pictured below. Selecting <User Defined> will allow you to enter custom text in the box below.
  Product information and codes will be pulled from the product page and will populate automatically when printing.
  Customer, sales and production information will only populate when using a specific printing method. Please see Product Label Printing Options for more information.                                                                                                                
• Font - Click on this button of press F on your keyboard to open up the font options window. Select the font style, size and any special formatting that you would like to apply.
                                                                                                    
• Alignment - Select if you want your text to be centered in the text box, or justified to the right or left using the drop-down. 
• Wrap - Check this box if you would like your text to wrap to fit the width of the text box. You can adjust the text box's dimensions once it has been added to the label.
• Transparent - Check this box if you would like the text box itself to be transparent

Click OK to add the text box to the label. You can always reopen this dialogue box to make edits by double-clicking the text box in the label editor.

The text box will appear in the upper left corner by default, but you can click and drag it into the desired position. You can also resize the text box by clicking and dragging the black boxes on the corners and sides of the text box.  The font size of the text box will scale to match when the height of the text box is changed.                                                                 

   Paragraph

 Click this button to add a paragraph box to the label, such as an ingredient list; this allows multiple lines of text and automatically word wraps the text. This will bring up the ‘Set Text Properties’ window where you can enter the following information:

• Data Source - Select the information you would like have appear in that paragraph from the drop-down list pictured below. Selecting <User Defined> will allow you to enter custom text in the box below.
  Product information and codes will be pulled from the product page and will populate automatically when printing.
  
                                                                                                              
• Font - Click on this button of press F on your keyboard to open up the font options window. Select the font style, size and any special formatting that you would like to apply.
                                                                                                    
• Alignment - Select if you want your text to be centered in the text box, or justified to the right or left using the drop-down.
• Wrap - This will be selected by default. Unselecting this box will limit your text to a single line; text that extends beyond the width of the box would not be displayed.
• Border - Select from 3 styles of border to use on the paragraph: All (4-sided border), None or Top and Bottom.
• Thickness - Select the thickness of line to use for the border

Click OK to add the paragraph to the label. You can always reopen this dialogue box to make edits by double-clicking the text box in the label editor.

The paragraph will appear in the upper left corner by default, but you can click and drag it into the desired position. You can also resize the text box by clicking and dragging the black boxes on the corners and sides of the text box. 

Paragraph types that auto-populate depending on the product, such as the ingredients list, will use the type name as placeholder text. Resizing the box will not adjust the font size in this case, only the space allotted to the paragraph. It's a good idea to adjust the size of these when using the Test function, described in the next section To make sure that enough space has been allotted.

     Picture

Click on this button to include pictures on your labels, such as your company logo or a promotional shot of the product.                                                                                                                                           

1. First you'll need to select a Picture Type. A Static Picture will appear the same on every label, so choose this if you're attaching a logo or decorative image. A Linked Picture will display the product image associated with the product; if there is none, no image will be displayed and that area of the label will be blank
2. If you have selected Static Image, you'll need to specify the Filename of the picture that should be used. Click on the Browse button to open the file explorer, then select the appropriate file. If you need to upload the image to the cloud, please see the Transfer Files To/From Cloud on PC or Transfer Files To/From Cloud on Mac OS
                                                                                            
3. Once your image has been selected, a preview will be displayed in the bottom right. If you've selected the wrong image, click Clear Picture to remove it.
   

Click OK to add your image to the label. If you have chosen to add a linked image, a placeholder labelled Product Image Here will be displayed. 

As above, you can drag and drop your image to place it where you want it on the label. You can also resize it by clicking and dragging the black boxes on the image corners and sides.

Having problems with an image overlapping or blocking something on the label? Right-clicking on a picture will give you the option to Bring to Front or Send to Back. Sending an image to the back will stop it from overlapping anything else.
  

  Barcode

Click on this button to add a barcode to your label. This will open up the Generate Barcode window.

You'll first need to make a selection from the Type drop-down. A preview of the barcode can be seen at the bottom of the window.

• Selecting <User Defined> will allow you to select the type from the list on the right, and then manually type in a code.  If you have chosen to use a UPC, SCC or EAN-13, JAN barcode, FlexiBake will calculate the "check digit", which is the final digit in the code.                                                                                   
  When choosing this option, please be aware that this barcode will be the same for all products using this label.                                                                                                                                               
• If you select Batch Number, when printed the label will pull the FlexiBake batch/lot number that was assigned to the product during production. A sample batch code will be displayed for the preview                                                       
  
  If using this option, to have the batch information appear on the label you will need to use the steps outlined in Print Product Labels for Planned Production to print your labels. 
• Selecting any of the other barcode types from the Type drop-down will automatically pull the appropriate code from the Details tab of the product. To see how to add this information, check out our tutorial Add a UPC, EAN-13, SCC or ECCNet Code to a Product. A placeholder barcode will be displayed in the preview.                              

 Click OK to add the barcode to your label. You can click and drag the barcode to re-position it on the label, and use the black boxes on the sizes and corners to re-scale the barcode as necessary. To edit the code or change the type of barcode, simply double click on it to open the Generate Barcode window.

  Line

Click on this button to add a line to the template. It will appear in the upper left corner of the label creator, then you can click and drag the line to re-position it on the label.  

To change the orientation, length, or weight/width of the line, you can click and drag the black boxes on the corners and sides of the line.                   

To see more information about the line object, double click on it to open up the Set Line Attributes window. Here, you can also adjust the weight of the line by selecting the desired weight of the object, and then clicking OK.                                                                                                          

  Label  Object (Nutrition Facts Panel)

 Click on this button to add a Label Object to your label. The label objects that come included by default in FlexiBake are the Nutrition Facts Panels for CFIA (Canada), FDA (US) and FSANZ (Australia and New Zealand) regulations.

Select the desired label object from the Object drop-down, then check the preview to ensure that this is the correct label object. Click OK to add it to the label.

To position the label object on the label, simply click on it and drag it to the desired position. Please note that nutritional panels cannot be resized in the label designer. If you need to adjust a nutritional panel to fit the layout of your label, please see the tutorial Resize Nutritional Facts Panels.

Deleting Label Items

If you've made a mistake, or don't like the way something looks on your label, you can easily remove it. Simply click once on the item and then press the Delete key on your keyboard. A pop-up will appear to confirm that you would like to delete the label item; click Yes to remove it.

Testing Your Label

 Once you have built your label, you can check to see how it would look by clicking on the Test button in the bottom left corner. This will populate information and images from the products in your system, allowing you to make sure that things line up properly or look as you want them to when they print. You can use the arrow buttons below to scroll through different products in your system, so you can make sure the template works for a variety of products if necessary.
 

Please note that there is no production or sales/customer information to display in this test view, and so those fields will appear blank. Only information associated with the product will be visible when testing the template, other than nutritional panels, which will only show placeholder information.

If you would like to go back and edit the label without the product information populating, click on the Stop Test button in the lower left corner.

 When you have settled on a design, click OK to save it. Before printing your labels, it's a good idea to look at our article Product Label Printing Options to see which label printing method will work best for you.

To see the label designer live in action, please check out the video version of this tutorial below: