Frequently Asked Questions

WHAT IS YOUR SHIPPING POLICY

We ship UPS Ground service to business addresses in the 48 contiguous states. We charge actual published UPS rates based on weight. Surcharges may apply to residential and international addresses. Due to the custom nature of our products, the amount shown at the time of ordering is an estimate and may vary based on weight at the time of shipping. The actual shipping charged will be reflected on your final invoice.

WHAT ABOUT ESTABLISHING AN OPEN ACCOUNT

If you wish to open a credit account with Interstate Label & Tag Company, please call our Customer Service Department at 800-426-3261 and ask that a credit application be emailed or faxed to you, or download it here.

WHAT ARE YOUR TERMS

With credit approval, our terms ar 1% 10 days, net 30 days from the date of shipment. All iems are F.O.B., Freeland, Washington, unless specified. Washington residents will be charged state and local sales tax on applicable items. We reserve the right to correct typographical and printing errors, and to discontinue items.

WHAT IS YOUR PRIVACY POLICY

The information you provide to us about your company is completely confidential. We do not share this information with anyone period. View our complete Privacy Policy.

I NEED HELP LOADING MY TOWA PRICE MARKING GUN

The towa guns are very easy to load once you have done it once or twice. We have a picture guide to help you get the hang of it. If you are still having trouble with it feel free to give us a call us at 800-426-3261. One of our Customer Service Representative will be glad to help

I WANT YOU TO USE MY ARTWORK. HOW SHOULD I PREPARE IT?

Thanks for asking. Sending us properly prepared art will allow us to give you a better product and save you money too. We will accept both hardcopy and digital artwork. Follow the links for information on best practices and a list of programs/file formats we accept for digital artwork. Pay particular attention to programs/file formats we cannot work with.

IT LOOKS GREAT ON MY SCREEN. WHY IS IT UNUSABLE?

What you see is not necessarily what you will get. Computer monitors render images at a much lower resolution than even your printer. The software and machinery we use to create your labels are very sensitive to any blemishes or imperfections that may otherwise be invisible on your monitor or even on a printed copy. Thus, even a perfect print does not guarantee a perfect label. We are happy to check your artwork for free and give you recommendations on what needs to be done to ensure a high quality product.

WHY DON’T THE COLORS ON MY SCREEN MATCH THE COLORS ON MY LABEL?

Every monitor and printer shows color a little differently. What you see as one color on one monitor may show as a completely different color on another monitor. While the differences aren’t usually that drastic, colors viewed on your monitor or printed through your printer are likely to render a color slightly different than the ones that will appear on your label. Exact color matches are possible using PMS colors. Our helpful sales representatives will be happy to assist you with the color selection.

CAN YOU TAKE PUBLISHER, POWER POINT, WORD OR EXCEL FILES?

These programs were built to create small, efficient file sizes that are perfect for creating documents to be used in offices and other business environments. To do this, graphics and images are down-sampled or degraded. This helps make the files smaller but also reduces the quality of the graphic or image significantly, resulting in a less appealing, lower quality label.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PROCESS AND SPOT COLOR?

Process color uses four colors Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK) to create images. These four inks are slightly transparent and printed together, one over the other. This causes the eye to perceive those colors as being mixed together and thus creates the illusion of another color. This is the same way an ink jet printer creates color, just on a bigger scale which sometimes results in a dotty or grainy look.

Spot color uses a selection of pre-mixed colors that are printed either solid or screened. The ink used for these colors is opaque and covers the material, and other colors under it, more completely than process colors. We are here to help you determine which of these is best for your label.

WHY DO YOU CHARGE TO SEPARATE MY ARTWORK?

Color separation is generally only required for those labels using more than one spot color. Uneditable graphics, such as .jpg and .tiff, require our graphics department to separate each color by hand, cleaning up each layer of color as they go. This process can be time consuming, but once done the artwork will be kept on file so you never again have to pay to have that piece color separated.

WHAT MAKES ARTWORK EDITABLE?

The ability to change or move elements within the artwork independent of other elements. Rasterized images, such as .jpg and .gif, are not editable. Once a graphic has been saved in a non-editable format it cannot be made editable by simply saving it again in a different format. So while .ai and .psd files are more likely to contain editable content, it does not guarantee any or all of the content is editable. This does not mean the artwork is not usable, but may require special considerations or reduce the options available for printing.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RASTERIZED AND VECTOR ART?

Rasterized art is one large image made up of many little dots. A common example of rasterized art is a photo; everything exists as a single element and cannot be independently edited. Rasterized images are most appropriate for photographic elements, but must be of a high resolution in order to render quality labels.

Vector art is made up of lines and shapes computed mathematically by the computer. This makes sizing and editing a snap and creates clear, consistent lines and color. Vector images are most appropriate for illustrations and shapes with clear areas of solid color or gradients.

Vector art can be easily rasterized; however, not all rasterized art can be easily made into vector art.

CAN I INCREASE THE RESOLUTION OF A GRAPHIC TO MAKE IT USABLE?

Once an image or graphic is low resolution it has lost a great deal of information about the image. The dots once used to make up the fine details of the image are lost as the details are less visible at these smaller sizes. By simply increasing the resolution these remaining dots are increased in size, creating a very poor quality image with blurry or blocky areas where information used to exist, but no longer does.

I KNOW MY ARTWORK SUCKS... CAN I USE IT ANYWAY?

We want all of our customers to be utterly satisfied with the labels they receive from us. This is why we seek to help you find the best artwork for your needs. However, there are times when great artwork simply isn’t available or required. In these cases, we will happily use the artwork you supply, but may ask that you sign a waiver.

MY LABELS FALL OFF MY ITEMS?

What sort of items are you putting them on? If they are in the refrigerator/freezer, or a coated item, then our adhesives may not work for you. You may need a special adhesive.
* What kind of adhesive are they? If AR, you might want to upgrade to GP. If GP, we will need to pull your order and test the sample we have. We may need to get a sample roll from customer to test.

MY LABELS ARE STICKING IN MY GUN AND NOT COMING OUT PROPERLY. WHAT'S WRONG?

How many rolls of labels are having a problem?

Is this a brand new gun, or one you've been using for a while? If it's an older gun, there may be a label stuck in the gun that is jamming it up. If you can't see it yourself, you're welcome to send it to us and we can clean and refurbish the gun for $15 plus parts. If it's a new gun, is it loaded properly? You may want to test a roll of labels from another box to see if you have the same problems. If yes, we can pull a web sample to test to see if there is a bad hole punch or a bad butt cut. We may need to have you send a roll of labels to us for testing.

WHEN I PRINT MY LABEL OUT, THE INK BLEEDS ALL OVER THE PLACE. HOW DO I FIX THAT?

Is the ink smearing after you touch it, or bleeding on the label on its own? If it is smearing, then you probably have a new ink roller in your price marker. They can have too much ink. You can take a paper towel and soak up any excess ink on the ink roller and that should solve the problem. If the ink roller is not new, then check to be sure that the marker is loaded correctly.
If the ink is bleeding on the label, what material is the label? Is it plain white, a fluorescent color, or a pastel? We will need to test one of our samples here to check out the problem, or possibly have you send a roll of labels in for testing.

The labels are tearing as they come out of the price marker. What is wrong?

We will need to test our samples here to see if there is a bad hole punch or a bad butt cut on your labels. We may need you to send us a roll of your labels to test.