If you don't have a P-Touch, run, don't walk to your nearest office supply store! Some people ask us, "What is a P-Touch?" Well, P-Touch is actually the brand name of a label maker made by Brother. There are a few clones, but we prefer the genuine P-Touch because the cartridges are brand specific and the P-Touch is the most available cartridge. Plus, so many stores carry the cartridges, you can often find them on sale or at bulk discounts. You don't want to invest in a machine and then find that you can't get the cartridges or you have to search then pay a mint for them.

We're on our second P-Touch. The first was a "typewriter" model that had its own keyboard and had 2-3 fonts and 9 memories. It was a nice model, but the memories were virtually useless unless you wrote down what was in them (otherwise, you'd have to look at each one to find out what's in there).

We then graduated to our current PT-1500PC. This model hooks up to your computer using a USB port. The main advantages to this model are:

• You can use any font and size that is available on your computer, not just the fonts programmed into the machine
  
• You get a machine that can accept 1" tape for less than most 1" tape machines
  
• You can save files with your label text on your computer with file names that you can remember!
  
• You can copy and paste repeating labels or copy and paste from another document into the label. This saves lots of typing time!

Our favorite P-Touch Hint? Buy wider tape, then type a different label on each line. For example, let's say you really want 1/4" labels. You can create 4 labels 1/4" wide from a 1" wide tape! All you have to do is type 4 lines of text on the wide label, then cut them apart yourself. Yes, this is a bit extra labor, but you're saving money doing this! For example, the average price for a 1" wide tape is $22. The average price for a 1/4" tape is $10. (both are 26' long). So, if you're always doing 1/4" labels, you can get 4x as many labels for only 2x the price! 1" tape also gives you more flexibility to do wide labels sometimes and narrow labels other times. a 1/4" tape will only give you 1/4" labels. But a 1" tape can give you 2 labels 1/2" each , 3 labels 1/3" each or one label 1" wide (and every variation in between...)

The other "big revelation" - type different labels as one long line of text. By this we mean, if you're typing color labels, don't type "Blue" then hit print, then type "Red" then hit print etc. No no no! Type "Blue Red Yellow" etc. If you print each word separately, you'll get alot of blank tape before and after the label. If you type in the spaces between the words, you'll get more labels out of your 26' of tape!