Getting started
labelpipe designs, generates and prints labels and documents. Labels can be printed in three ways:
- by people on the Print labels page,
- by other systems through the JSON API,
- in two output formats: PDF for office/laser printers and ZPL for Zebra label printers.
Signing in
Open the app in a browser and sign in with your e-mail and password. Ask an administrator for an account.
A brand-new server has no accounts yet. Whoever installed it runs
docker compose logs web | grep "first-run setup" and opens the newest link. The page set up labelpipe asks
for that setup key, then shows the licence agreement, which you must accept, then asks for the first
administrator (name, e-mail, a password of at least 12 characters), then sets up the authenticator app and shows 10
recovery codes once: save them. The link works for 24 hours, a new one is printed at every restart, and the page
disappears for good once an administrator exists.
The licence agreement. labelpipe is free of charge in the Free edition, but it is not open source. The app
records who accepted the agreement, which version and when. When an update brings a new version of the agreement, the
next administrator who signs in sees it first and accepts it for the organisation. Until then, administrators see
only that page; everyone else keeps printing. You can read it again at any time at /admin/licence.
Who can do what
| Role | Can |
|---|---|
| Operator | Print labels and see the jobs of their own stores |
| Template manager | Everything an operator can, plus design label templates and manage label fields |
| Administrator | Everything, for all stores: stores, printers, users, integration clients |
The menu
- Printing — Print labels, Import labels and Jobs & history
- Setup — stores, printers, printer routing, CUPS admin (opens the print server’s web page), label templates, label fields (all fields: built-in, calculated and your own), calculated fields, images (your uploads)
- Access — users, integration clients and the API log (administrators)
- Help — this manual, the API documentation, the Postman collection and environment, and (administrators) the developer documentation
The version you are using is shown at the bottom of the menu.
Searching the manual
Stuck on a screen? Press Ctrl + / (⌘ + / on a Mac), or click Search help at the top of any page, and type a few words, for example promo price or printer offline. Results appear as you type: the chapter, the section and a line of text with your words marked. Use ↑ ↓ and Enter to open one (Ctrl + Enter opens it in a new tab), and Esc to clear or close. Several words must all match; put words in quotes (“price label”) to find them together. Capitals and accents don’t matter, Bulgarian included.
On the User manual page the search box at the top shows the results in place of the chapters, with no limit; clear the box to get the chapters back. See all results in the top-bar panel opens that list. Administrators also see matches from the developer documentation. What you type is never stored.
Dark and light mode
labelpipe opens in dark mode. To switch, open the user menu (your initials, top right) and pick the sun (light), moon (dark) or screen (follow your computer) icon. Your choice is remembered in this browser. Labels, PDF previews and the designer’s canvas always show white paper, because that is what gets printed.
Working with lists
Every list (jobs, templates, printers …) uses the whole width of the screen, so wide monitors show more columns.
- Sort: click a column title. Search: the box above the list searches everything, the small boxes under the column titles search one column.
- Columns: the columns button (▥) hides or shows columns; drag a column title to move it.
- Column width: drag the right edge of a column title (the cursor turns into ↔). Double-click the edge to go back to the automatic width. Widths are remembered per list in your browser; on small screens the list scrolls sideways.
- Filters: the funnel button. Sorting, filters and searches are remembered while you work.