Label Discs With Linux and Windows Printers

By A Lizard

August 14, 2006

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System builders know the printing headaches involved with paper-labeling their customers' CDs or DVDs. Even worse is manually labeling discs with Sharpies. It always looks amateurish, no matter how professional the work on the disc is.

There's also a serious problem that can result from sticking adhesive labels on discs: It can affect the disc's stability. For that reason, the National Institute of Standards and Technology recommends against affixing labels on C/DVDs used for archival purposes. (Learn more from this NIST CD/DVD archival care page.)

With paper labels, there another problem: At the high (and increasing) rotational rates used in C/DVD drives, if the label isn't exactly centered on the disc, the CD/DVD-R could be literally shredded apart, right inside the drive. Not only would this harm the drive, but it could also be dangerous to the user. Luckily, this doesn't happen often. But let's not invoke Murphy's Law on a computer we're responsible for.

In this article, I'll show you how to bypass all these potential problems. I'll also show how to and print directly on printable C/DVDs, which contain a special coating intended to retain ink.

These instructions should work whether the PC system runs Linux, Windows, or OSX. When I initially prepared this article, I was using Fedora Core 2 Linux. Since then, I've upgraded to Fedora Core 3. Even so, the article still applies. From your point of view, the critical parts--print driver and OpenOffice 2.x--should be distribution-independent.

One note of caution: This article is intended to help you deploy short production runs of C/DVDs. But if you're planning to print on 100 or more identical C/DVDs at a time, you'll save time and money by simply--looking for a bulk C/DVD duplication facility via Google or your local phone book--and having the C/DVDs pressed; not burned and printed with the text and imagery of your choice.

Working with Canon Printers

One factor that influenced my choice of printer was an ability to print to C/DVD--and, of course, not having to spend too much extra for the feature.

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