Use label printing for Inventory and sample management

Label Printing in Benchling allows you to take sample data from your Benchling instance, design a label with critical attributes, print your label, and paste it on containers/locations in your physical lab space. Benchling supports printing labels for any box, plate, container, or registered entity you track. Benchling’s label printing capabilities help you achieve complete sample and process traceability. 

This guide discusses how to print labels. In order to do this, the printers must already be configured and connected and the label templates must be created. For more information on how to do this for Zebra Print or BarTender see the linked articles.  

Upload to Benchling

1. Go to Feature Settings and select Inventory from the menu
2. Go to the Label Printing menu
3. Click Create Label Template

4. Paste ZPL code (from Zebra Designer) or BarTender template code and give the template a descriptive name
5. Click Create to save the template 

Preview the template

1. Select the template from the list
2. Click Refresh Preview

Note: This feature uses a third-party service (Labelary.com) and may need to be enabled by contacting Benchling Support.

Print labels

Once your label templates and printers are configured, you can print labels directly from several places in Benchling. These include:

• Inventory: Print labels for containers, plates, or boxes directly from their item pages
• Registry: Print labels for registered entities from the Registry view
• Notebook: Highlight items within a table in your Notebook entry and print labels in bulk
• Global Search: Select multiple items from a search result and print labels for all of them at once

Print labels for individual objects

1. Navigate to the item (e.g., container, plate, box) you wish to print a label for
2. Click the three-dot menu (⋮) and select Print Label
3. Choose the appropriate Label Template and Printer
4. Click Print to generate the label

Note: Ensure the Zebra Browser Print application or BarTender server is running and properly configured to receive print jobs.

Print from the Notebook

1. Within a Notebook entry, highlight the table cells containing the items you wish to print labels for
2. Click the three-dot menu (⋮) in the top-right corner of the table
3. Select Print barcodes from the dropdown menu
4. In the print modal:
   • Select the appropriate Label Template from the drop-down menu
   • Choose the desired Printer
   • Enter the number of copies you wish to print
5. Click Print to generate the labels

Bulk Printing Labels

1. Use the global search to locate and select multiple items (e.g., containers, entities) for which you wish to print labels
2. In the expanded search view, select all desired items
3. Click the Print icon located in the top-right corner of the toolbar
4. In the print modal:
   • Select the appropriate Label Template from the drop-down menu
   • Choose the desired Printer
   • Enter the number of copies you wish to print
5. Click Print to generate the labels