Printing labels can be either fun or frustrating, depending on the label printer and its software. Brother International now offers the QL series of label printers. They handles a bunch of different kinds of labels that consumer use:

John Biancamano gave me a quick demo and described the printing chores the printers can handle. "You can do anything from mailing labels, address labels, shipping labels, file folders. You want to do canning? You can label your jars, you can do CD labels. We've got a number of different label sizes that you can pretty much label anything around the house."

They are paper labels on either pre-sized or on a continuous roll so you can create a banner for a classroom or just longer than usual labels for whatever comes up.

Label printers I've tried in the past have often been frustrating when it comes to getting the labels in correctly and selecting the right size in the software. The Brother QL series has taken care of all that, especially putting in the labels correctly.

"There's only one way, you can't reverse it," says Biancamano. "We've got a patented technology that allows you to only put the paper in one way. But it also integrates with the software so the software recognizes what label roll is in there."

Load the software, plug in the USB cable, and setup is automatic. Design a label, add barcodes. And Biancamano says the software integrates with Microsoft Office programs. "It connects directly with Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access. So you're in word, you want to print a mailing label. You just highlight the address, click on our P-touch icon in the toolbar and it will automatically bring up the P-touch software and you can print the label right from there."

Pretty simple.

The new QL series will print up to 50 labels a minute. Price ranges from 100 to 130 dollars.