📖 Reference
Packaging & Shipping Glossary
Every term you'll run into across our reviews and guides — packaging materials and thermal printing both — explained in plain language, in one place.
A
- Air Pillows
- Inflatable plastic cushions used as void fill; they ship flat and are inflated on-site as needed.
B
- Black Mark Sensor
- A printer sensor that detects a printed mark on the label backing to determine where one label ends and the next begins.
- Bubble Mailer
- A padded envelope with a bubble-wrap lining, built for small, lightweight, semi-fragile items.
- Bubble Wrap
- Plastic sheeting with air-filled pockets, used to cushion fragile items inside a box or mailer.
- Burst Strength (Mullen Test)
- A rating of how much pressure a corrugated box can withstand before rupturing, often listed alongside ECT.
C
- Calibration
- The process of teaching a thermal printer the exact size and gap of the labels currently loaded, so it prints in the right position.
- Corrugated Board
- The fluted paperboard material used to make shipping boxes, prized for its strength-to-weight ratio.
- Custom Box Insert
- A shaped divider or cushion cut to fit a specific product exactly, common for fragile or multi-part items.
D
- Desiccant Pack
- A small pouch that absorbs moisture inside packaging, protecting contents sensitive to humidity.
- Dimensional Weight (DIM Weight)
- A carrier's billed weight based on a package's volume rather than its actual weight, charged when it exceeds actual weight.
- Direct Thermal
- A printing method that uses heat-sensitive paper to create an image directly, with no ink or ribbon required.
- DPI (Dots Per Inch)
- A measure of print resolution; higher DPI means finer detail on barcodes and small text.
- Dunnage
- Any material used to fill empty space and protect cargo during shipping, a general term covering most void fill types.
E
- ECT (Edge Crush Test)
- A rating of how much stacking weight a corrugated box can bear before its edges collapse.
- EPL (Eltron Programming Language)
- A printer command language used by some Zebra-compatible thermal printers, an alternative to ZPL.
F
- Fanfold Labels
- Labels that stack in a continuous zigzag fold rather than being wound onto a roll.
- Flute (A, B, C, E, F)
- The wave-shaped inner layer of corrugated board; each letter denotes a different flute thickness and cushioning profile.
- Foam Insert
- Custom-cut foam padding used to protect fragile or high-value items inside a box.
K
- Kraft Paper
- A strong, brown paper commonly used for wrapping and as a lightweight void fill material.
L
- Label Gap Sensor
- A sensor that detects the physical gap between individual labels on a roll, used for calibration.
- Label Liner
- The backing paper that a label peels away from before being applied.
M
- Mailer (Poly / Rigid / Bubble)
- A general term for non-box shipping enclosures, ranging from flexible poly bags to stiff rigid mailers to padded bubble mailers.
P
- Packing Peanuts
- Loose-fill foam pieces used as cushioning around irregularly shaped items.
- Pallet Wrap (Stretch Wrap)
- Plastic film wrapped around palletized loads to secure them for bulk shipping.
- Peel Mode
- A thermal printer setting that automatically separates each label from its backing as it prints, one at a time.
- Print Darkness / Density
- A printer setting controlling how dark the printed image appears on the label.
- Print Head
- The heated component inside a thermal printer that transfers the image onto the label material.
R
- Rigid Mailer
- A stiff, flat mailer that resists bending, used for documents, photos, and prints that must stay flat.
- Roll Core Size
- The diameter of the cardboard core a label roll is wound around, which must match the printer's spindle.
S
- Strapping / Banding
- Plastic or metal bands used to secure heavy or bulk shipments, often combined with pallets.
T
- Tear-Off Mode
- A thermal printer setting where each label must be manually torn off after printing, rather than auto-peeled.
- Thermal Ribbon
- The ink-coated ribbon used in thermal transfer printing, melted onto the label by the print head.
- Thermal Transfer
- A printing method that uses heat to melt ribbon ink onto label material, producing labels that last far longer than direct thermal.
V
- Void Fill
- Any material used to fill empty space inside a package, preventing contents from shifting in transit.
- Void Fill Ratio
- The proportion of a box's total volume that is empty space needing to be filled.
W
- Water-Activated Tape (Gummed Tape)
- A reinforced tape that bonds directly to corrugated board when moistened, creating a stronger seal than standard packing tape.
Z
- ZPL (Zebra Programming Language)
- The command language used by Zebra printers and many Zebra-compatible brands to generate label layouts.
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