How to use a Zebra ZP 450 with eBay, USPS, Stamps.com, PayPal & more in Windows 7, 8, 10!
Free UPS thermal shipping labels with the Zebra ZP 450 while still using USPS, eBay, PayPal, stamps.com, endicia, and more! Use thte ZP-450 with eBay, PayPal, Amazon and more.
The ZP 450 Thermal Printer by Zebra stopped production in around 2012. Because of this, driver support is limited and installation on modern systems can be tricky. However the ZP 450 is a very solid thermal printer and is also designed to work well with the free 4×6″ UPS thermal labels as well as many other generic thermal label suppliers.
Without a bit of help and reading, you’ll likely have a ton of trouble getting your ZP 450 to work to print out labels unless you’re using it only with UPS’s software. Thankfully it only takes a few minutes to also get it to work with other shipping services and sales platforms.
Update: In recent years, I decided it was too much of a hassle to try to get (and keep) a Zebra thermal printer working on newer and newer computers. I switched to a Dymo 4XL to print 4×6 shipping labels and it has been going strong for years!
DYMO LabelWriter 4XL Shipping Label Printer, Prints 4×6 Extra Large Shipping Labels
There are a ton of generic, cheap thermal shipping labels available on Amazon for Dymo printers as well. My current choice is below:
enKo Compatible Zebra 4×6 Label/Dymo Labels 1744907 (4 x 6″) for Dymo Labelwriter 4XL Shipping Zebra Direct Thermal Printer (8 Rolls, 1760 Labels)
Here are the instructions for getting the Zebra ZP 450 working in Windows 7 / 8 / 10 etc.
I have just done this setup in 2015 and it is working great.
0. Load a roll of thermal labels following the visual instructions you see inside the printer.
1. Plug in your ZP 450 power and USB cable into your Windows PC. Turn on the printer using the switch at its back.
2. Windows will most likely pop up an error message saying driver not found
3. Download the driver for the LP 2844 printer from the Zebra website. Here is the link: https://www.zebra.com/us/en/support-downloads/desktop/lp-2844.html (yes that’s right, you have to use the driver for the LP 2844 even if it makes no sense).
4. Install the printer driver. You will likely also want to install the Zebra Font program and the Zebra status monitor programs that are options during the installation.
5. During installation, you will likely be asked to pick the port your ZP 450 is plugged into. You will probably have it plugged in via USB, so it will be one of the ports listed as USB, however you will have to test via trial and error to figure out which port it is currently plugged into. For now, simply pick one of the ports that are shown as blank (no other printer in that slot).
6. Now open up windows control panel and go to the Devices and Printers section. You will now see “ZDesigner LP 2844” listed as one of your printers. To finish picking the port and setting up the print settings, right click on it and click “Printer Properties”. Now click on “Preferences…” located toward the bottom of the General tab. Here set speed to 1.50/s, darkness to 14, paper format to inch, portrait, and set size to 4.00 and height o 6.00. Unprintable area leave at all zeroes. Then click apply then OK.
7. Now try to print a test page. Wait a few seconds and see if your printer spits out a print. If not, it is probably set for the wrong port. Still in the “Printer Properties” dialog box, click on the “Ports” tab. Now switch to a different blank USB port and then click apply, then go print another Test page. Repeat this until your printer successful spits out a test page!
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Thank you for this write up. Worked beautifully and saved me a lot of potential grief!
you are Great
Hello, thanks for this tutorial. I’m trying to install it on my Windows 8.1 laptop however I don’t see any USB port in the settings…only LPT1, 2, 3, COM1 , 2 , 3….Any idea?
Thanks for the good job
I’ve done all of this. I cannot change my label width to 4″ in preferences. 2.99″ is the biggest width it will allow. Any suggestions??
Did you ever find out a solution to this?
Are you checking the printer preferences in the control panel? I believe there might be 2 or 3 different places where you can change the label size (driver’s settings, windows control panel printer preferences–click advanced, and windows control panel printer properties).
Check in all those locations for paper size settings and make sure they all match. Sorry I don’t have the Zebra ZP 450 hooked up any more so I can’t give you any more specifics.
Maybe also try entering a custom paper size?
this worked for my zebra zp450. now my problem is when i try to print the label from my email it doesn’t fit right. any idea how i can fix this?
I would double-check your paper settings in your browser and also in the windows control panel (check every option in printer properties and preferences.) Make sure the paper size is set to 4×6 everywhere and is set as the default.
I am still getting an error when i try to print. Thanks for this because it’s a start for me
Hello,
This worked like a charm! We are using Stamps.com and the Zebra ZP 450 was printing labels half on one label and half on the other on half of the labels. After follow (ALL STEPS) above, it work perfectly! It now prints slower and on each label perfectly. We only followed the instructions up to Step 5 and printed a test page per this step and it seem to work fine on the test page. We then used Stamps.com to print the labels only to fine out that the print was still printing about the same (Speed and quality) ,but the separations were slightly farther apart. (about 6 labels, you start to see the labels start to move again) We then followed Step 6 and Step 7 and it worked like a charm. On our system, it changed the ornamentation of the label and it started to print slower than what it was originally and after finishing Step 5.
I want to take the person that posted this, becasue it speed up our process and save us a huge amount of time from cutting the split labels with scissors and re-printing the ones that the label was split on the address line.
you can download Zebra ZP 450 driver on (the site listed in the article)
What can I do to print over wifi or wireless?
I worked on this problem for 2 hours and I am so grateful that you took the time to make this. Completely solved all my issues quickly. You are my hero!!!!
Will this work for the zebra zp505? I need help.
I have zp450 will not print 4×6 labels from PayPal but prints from pirateship just fine . Isbthere any way around this before I send my printer back?
It’s been a while since I used one of these printers. When I did use it yes I also had issues with some services not printing the correct size or type of labels. I’m sorry I can’t give any specifics, but make sure you have the correct label size selected in both your computer’s printer software and on your shipping service (paypal.) I haven’t used Pirateship, but it also might be possible to import PayPal orders into a shipping management service. Sorry I don’t have any better info as I haven’t tried the specific things you are trying.
Another thing to try is some shipping services will let you download a .PDF or .JPG of the shipping label, which you could download to your desktop. Then open it and print from there.
Hope that helps some!
Sorry I don’t know. I ended up giving up on the ZP 450 and those old Zebra printers. I currently use a Dymo printer with generic compatible labels. Unfortunately I can’t use the free labels from UPS anymore, (they don’t have the little cutout that dymo printers use) but it has worked great otherwise.