Badge printing with a Zebra printer

Eventship prints name badges directly from the scanner to a Zebra ZD621 (or any compatible ZPL thermal printer). A badge shows the attendee's name, job title, company, the event name, their ticket type and a check-in QR code. You pick the look and choose which of those appear in the Badge Label Designer. Your host name and your logo can go on the badge too, and both start switched off.

Badge printing is a Pro feature — your host must be on the Eventship Pro plan to enable it.

No Zebra? You can print the same badges on Avery sheets from any office printer. See Printing badges on Avery sheets.

What you need

Zebra ZD621 thermal label printer (or another Zebra ZPL-compatible model)
4" × 3" direct thermal or thermal transfer labels
A computer with the Zebra Browser Print agent installed
The Eventship scanner open in a browser on the same computer

One-time setup

1. Install Zebra Browser Print

Eventship talks to your Zebra printer through a tiny local service called Browser Print. You install it once on the machine that will be connected to the printer.

Browser Print is not the printer driver. A driver lets Windows or macOS print to the Zebra, but your browser can only reach the printer through Browser Print. If you have installed the driver and the scanner cannot find your printer, this is usually the missing piece.

Download Browser Print from Zebra's site: https://www.zebra.com/us/en/support-downloads/software/printer-software/browser-print.html (Zebra asks you to fill in a short request form before the download starts).
Run the installer and follow the prompts.
The first time it runs, Browser Print shows a license agreement, then asks to communicate with your browser and to access connected Zebra devices. Accept all three.
A Zebra icon in your system tray (the menu bar on macOS) means Browser Print is running. On Windows it starts by itself when you restart your computer. On a Mac, open it again from your Applications folder after a restart.

Browser Print is available for macOS, Windows, and Android. It does not send anything to Zebra: it only lets your browser discover and print to printers connected to that device.

Printing from a phone instead? The Eventship mobile app prints to network Zebras directly, with no Browser Print needed. See Badge printing from the mobile app.

2. Connect your printer

Plug the Zebra ZD621 into your computer via USB, or connect it to the same network. For a network printer, right-click the Zebra icon, choose Settings, and select Broadcast Search. Load 4" × 3" thermal labels. The printer's status light should be solid green.

Bluetooth does not work from a computer, because Browser Print on Windows and macOS only supports USB and network printers. A printer paired to your laptop over Bluetooth will not appear in the scanner, even if it prints from the mobile app.

On Windows, install Zebra's printer driver before you plug in the USB cable. To get it, search for your printer model, such as ZD621, on Zebra's support and downloads site, and download the Windows driver from that model's page. If you plugged in first, see "The scanner still cannot find a USB printer on Windows" under Troubleshooting.

3. Open the scanner

Go to your event's scanner page on the same computer where Browser Print is installed. Click Connect Zebra printer. The scanner finds the printer and remembers it for the session.

The first time you connect, expect two prompts. Both name the site your scanner is open on: eventship.com, or your own domain if your event pages run on one. Approve both:

Your browser asks whether the site may reach apps on this device or your local network. Click Allow.
Browser Print asks whether to allow the site to access your devices. Click Accept.

Each is a one-time approval. If you dismiss either one, the scanner cannot find your printer. Troubleshooting, further down this page, shows how to undo it.

Printing a badge

Once a printer is connected, each time you scan an attendee's QR code you'll see a Print badge button. Click it to send the badge to your Zebra. If you need to reprint for someone (lost badge, misprint), scan their code again — you don't have to check them in a second time.

Printing badges in advance

You do not have to print one badge at a time at the door. On your event page, open the guest list and click Print badges, or choose it under Guests in Manage event, to print a stack before doors open.

Every confirmed guest whose badge has not printed yet is selected to start with. Untick anyone you do not need, or search for the people you do, then click Print badges to start. You can also include guests who are not confirmed yet, such as a pending VIP or someone you added by hand. Those badges print, and Eventship tells you afterwards which ones were unusual, so a badge without a scannable QR code does not surprise you at the door.

If your guests register on another ticketing page, nothing is selected to start with. Eventship can see who started registering with you, but not who finished on the other site, so picking the whole list would print badges for people who may never have got a ticket. Choose the people you want badges for.

Badges print in alphabetical order, so the stack comes off the printer ready to lay out or hand over.

Eventship remembers which badges have printed, from this page, from the door scanner, from the mobile app, and on Avery sheets. A printed badge shows Printed next to the guest's name; hover over it to see when. The print filter beside the ticket-type filter starts on All badges; switch it to Not printed or Printed to pick up where you left off the next day.

A badge shows as not printed again if the ticket is passed to someone else or gets a new QR code, because the old badge would carry the wrong name or no longer scan. Editing a guest's name or company, or moving them to another ticket type, does not clear Printed, so reprint the badge yourself if it needs the change. Badges printed before Eventship started recording prints are not marked.

While a long run is going, you will see how many badges have printed and whose badge is going through the printer. Click Stop after this badge whenever you need to. Badges that already printed stay printed, and Eventship offers to print the rest when you are ready, so running out of labels partway through costs you nothing but the reload.

When the run finishes, you get a short report: how many printed, anyone whose badge could not be printed and why, and anyone whose badge printed with something worth knowing about.

Printing from an iPad instead? The Eventship mobile app has the same Badges button on the host guest list. See Badge printing from the mobile app.

Printing onto pre-printed badges

If your badges are already printed with your own branding and you stick the thermal label on top, you can tell Eventship which part of the badge is free to use.

In the Badge Label Designer, turn on Fit into a smaller area under "Printable area". A dashed box appears on the preview. Click the box to start editing it, then drag it, resize it from any corner, or type exact measurements in inches; press Escape or click away when you are done. Everything on the badge shrinks to fit inside that box, and nothing prints outside it.

To place the box accurately, upload your badge artwork under Your badge artwork. It appears behind the preview so you can position the box against your real design. The artwork is a guide only, and never prints.

A PDF or an image both work, and neither needs measuring by hand. Upload the PDF your badge stock came as and Eventship reads its trim size, so a 4" × 6" card exported with bleed on a 4.25" × 6.25" page arrives as the 4" × 6" card at its real size. An image has no size of its own, so it arrives fitted to your label.

If your card is bigger than the label you print on (a 4" × 6" card with a 4" × 3" label stuck on it), set Width to the card's real printed width and nudge Left and Top until the label sits where you will stick it. Negative values are normal here: they push the card past the label's edge. Fit to label puts the artwork back at the label's size and corner whenever you want to start over.

Two things to watch for. If the area gets small enough that text would be hard to read on a thermal printer, the designer tells you. If it gets too small for the QR code, the code is dropped rather than printed over the name. Run a Test print and lay it on a real badge before printing a full run.

Troubleshooting

"Your browser could not reach Zebra Browser Print"

The scanner asked Browser Print for your printers and got no answer. Three different things cause this, and one test tells you which. In the same browser you use for Eventship, open https://localhost:9101/available in a new tab.

You see a security warning such as "Your connection is not private". Your browser has not trusted Browser Print's certificate yet. Choose the option to continue anyway: in Chrome and browsers built on it, Advanced, then Proceed to localhost; in Firefox, Advanced, then Accept the Risk and Continue. The page then shows a line of text that names your printer. Reload the scanner and connect the printer again. Current versions of Browser Print should not show this warning, so if it comes back, reinstall Browser Print from Zebra's site.
You see "This site can't be reached". Browser Print is not running. Open it from your Applications folder (macOS) or Start menu (Windows), then reload the test page to confirm.
You see a line of text that names your printer, for example "ZD621". Browser Print is running and trusted, so your browser is stopping the Eventship site from reaching it. Follow the steps below. If the text names no printer at all, skip to the next section.

Allow the Eventship site to reach Browser Print. Chrome 142 and later ask for permission before a website can talk to software on your computer, and so do browsers built on Chrome, including Edge, Brave, Opera, and Dia. If that prompt was dismissed, blocked, or never appeared, the connection fails without saying why.

On the Eventship tab, click the icon to the left of the address bar, then Site settings.
Set Apps on device to Allow. Chrome 142 to 144 calls this setting Local network access. A setting left on Ask is not enough if the prompt never appeared.
Reload the scanner page and connect the printer again.

If your browser has no such settings, the cause is more likely one of the first two.

Still stuck after all three? Contact support and tell us which browser you use and what the test page showed.

"Browser Print is running but reported no printers"

This almost always means Browser Print has not approved the Eventship site. It rarely means something is wrong with your printer. Browser Print asks for site approval once, and to a site it has not approved it reports an empty printer list. If you declined that dialog, the site is on Browser Print's blocked list, and there is no button to approve it afterwards. Open Browser Print's settings on that computer, select the site under Blocked Hosts and click Delete Selected, then reload the scanner, connect the printer again, and accept the dialog when it reappears. Reinstalling Browser Print also clears the list.

If the site is already approved, make sure the printer is powered on, labels are loaded, and it is connected to the same computer that has Browser Print installed.

The printer works in the mobile app but not on the computer

The mobile app talks to the printer directly. A computer needs Browser Print in between, so a printer that works on your phone proves the printer is fine and says nothing about the laptop. Check these in order:

Browser Print is installed, not only the driver.
The printer is connected to the computer by USB or on the same network. Bluetooth does not work from a computer.
Browser Print is running, with its Zebra icon in your system tray.
You approved both prompts when you connected. If not, see "Your browser could not reach Zebra Browser Print" above.

The scanner still cannot find a USB printer on Windows

First, check that Windows can use the printer without Eventship. Open Settings, then Bluetooth & devices, then Printers & scanners.

If the Zebra is not listed, Windows probably set it up before the driver was installed, and it may appear as an unspecified device in Devices and Printers. Remove that device, unplug the USB cable, install Zebra's driver, then plug the cable back in.

If the Zebra is listed, select it and print a test page. If the test page fails, the problem is the connection or the driver, so nothing in Eventship will fix it. Follow the same steps to reinstall.

If the Windows test page prints, open https://localhost:9101/available. It should name your printer. If it names none, close Browser Print, reopen it from the Start menu, and reload.

Security software or a work laptop is blocking the connection

Everything above happens on your own computer, and each step can be stopped by a security setting. On a laptop your company manages, you may not be able to change these yourself. Ask your IT team to:

Allow Zebra Browser Print to install and run.
Allow your browser to open https://localhost:9101. Your browser settings may be locked, so the Apps on device setting described above may not be yours to change.
Allow the site your scanner is open on, either eventship.com or your own domain, to reach apps on the device.

Leave time for this before your event. If you cannot get it done in time, the Eventship mobile app prints without Browser Print, and it does not need anything installed on the laptop.

Printing problems

Labels come out blank. You may have thermal transfer media without a ribbon, or direct thermal labels but the wrong setting. Check the Zebra documentation for your label stock.

The badge layout looks wrong. Make sure your labels are 4" × 3". Other sizes will crop or scale oddly.

The badge is cut off. Eventship could not confirm your printer and printed at 300 DPI, which is too large for a 203 DPI printer. Check that the printer is on and connected, then print again. If it keeps happening, contact support.

Using a different Zebra model

Any Zebra printer that speaks ZPL should work with 4" × 3" labels. Both 203 DPI and 300 DPI print heads are supported. Eventship reads the head resolution from the printer and sizes the badge to match. If the printer cannot be reached for that, Eventship prints at 300 DPI and says so beside the print. For a different label size, contact support and we can help tune the template.