Contact UsContact Us

Sato Thermal Printing – a brief history

Sato Japan is the world’s third biggest manufacturer of desktop thermal printing devices behind both Zebra and TEC.

Sato originally manufactured handheld pricing guns, but in recent years has moved emphasis away from its sato label guns business in pursuit of TEC and Zebra with a goal of overtaking both of these companies to become the world’s dominant supplier of desktop thermal printers

Sato Desktop Thermal PrintersSato UK was originally the highly respected and profitable British company NOR-SYSTEMS, taken over by Sato about 10 years ago; it is now a poor shadow of its former self.

Sato UK are based in Harwich but have just recently closed its four UK branch offices. Sato has reduced its sales force and no longer offers onsite service. Sato now places most of its emphasis on selling desktop thermal printers rather than hand-held labelling.

However almost all of Sato’s hand held label guns and sato labels are available from alternative suppliers like Positive ID Labels.

Thermal Printing

Thermal printing is today’s most efficient system of in house label printing, and is an ideal low cost system for both retail and industry to handle short run, variable detail and bar code printing.

Thermal printing is achieved through a heat activated print head, made up of hundreds of ceramic pins which heat up to form letters, numbers, bar codes or even pictures. These images are then transferred to a label, made of paper, plastic or even clear acetate.

There are two main types of thermal printing; “thermal transfer” where carbon ribbons are used to transfer words or images to the label, the other system of thermal printing is to use chemi-thermal paper, which has a chemical layer inside the paper which turns black in contact with heat

Linked to your computer with a user-friendly software package (which Positive ID can provide) thermal printing allows the end user to design and print their own design of label from scratch, store it and recall it when needed. Thermal printing removes the cost of design, origination and forward ordering and storage.

If your requirement is lots of short run labels, i.e. date coding, ingredients, part numbering, bar coding then you need to be looking at thermal printing for your business needs. To investigate your needs and determine if thermal printing is the solution for you, please call us on 01332 864895 of get in touch through the contact page or complete the form below:

We design, print and package your labels within 1 week of your order, so you can ensure you products look amazing as quickly as possible.

Expertise and Knowledge
Customer Focus and Trust
Speed and Efficiency
Diverse Product Range

Contact Us

Get free advice from one of our print experts by calling: 01332 864895 or fill in your details below.

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.