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Seagull Bartender Buyers Guide

Seagull Scientific Bartender label creation software comes in a wide variety of editions, each designed to meet the needs of businesses of any size. From single-station product labeling to managing multiple automated print stations from a central server, Bartender can scale to meet your needs.

All versions are compatible with any printer that has a Windows driver. For greater print control, Seagull also offers free drivers for many popular printers, including industrial and desktop label printers. Seagull Printer Drivers are available at Seagull's site.

Bartender Basic

As the entry level version, Bartender Starter is ideal for single print stations. Database connections are not supported, opting for data-entry via keyboard or barcode scanner. The software does support full-color designs, image import, and serialization of text, making it a great fit for low-volume label printing or individual product labeling.

Bartender Pro

Bartender Pro improves on Basic's offering, giving you database connectivity, basic RFID support, and greater text formatting. Database tables can be filtered in the application itself, streamlining operations and eliminating printing overages. Bartender Pro's feature set put it at home at businesses with a wide variety of products, but needing to maintain label design across products.

Bartender Automation

BarTender Automation software is the premier label printing solution for demanding businesses. Licensing is based on number of printers used by BarTender on your network, allowing multiple workstations to run the software with ease. BarTender Automation comes equipped to cover high volume labeling, able to coordinate print jobs between databases and multiple printers, and can even accept triggers from other applications.

Bartender Enterprise Automation

BarTender Enterprise Automation provides the greatest feature set of the BarTender family, taking your labeling operation to the next level. With Enterprise Automation, you have the same features and licensing as Automation edition, but with added companion applications to give you even greater control & functionality of labeling operations.

Features		Professional	Automation	Enterprise	Starter
Business label design and management	Robust easy-to-use design tools, Intelligent TemplatesTM and basic printing	•	•	•
Dynamic business printing	Database connectivity, data entry forms, security, encoding and manual printing	•	•	•	•
Efficient automated printing	Intelligent forms, application building and automated printing		•	•
Comprehensive enterprise-wide printing	Centralized management, certified integrations, document management, web & mobile printing and comprehensive security			•
Included Applications		Professional	Automation	Enterprise	Starter
Administration Console	Manage and configure BarTender administration and system settings	•	•	•	•
Designer	Create your label and document templates - also serves as the print engine when integrating and automating the label printing process	•	•	•	•
Data Builder	Build and manage your own database without external applications like Excel or Access	•	•	•
Print Station	A simple, efficient interface for selecting and printing BarTender documents	•	•	•	•
Integration Builder	Connects BarTender with your business systems to enable automated printing directly from those systems		•	•
Process Builder	An easy graphical UI to build your own custom label and document printing solutions without the need for coding like C# or VB.NET		•	•
History Explorer	Centralized data logging and audit trail including print history, user access and more		*	•
Reprint Console	Reprint identical copies of previously printed labels and documents that may been misplaced or damaged		*	•
Printer Maestro	Provides centralized print management tools for printers and print jobs throughout a corporate network			•
Librarian	Centrally manage documents and create workflows for template approval using role- based security			•
Print Portal	Allows dynamic web-based printing and workflow review/approval right from your web browser			•
Support		Professional	Automation	Enterprise	Starter
Standard Maintenance and Support	Upgrade to the latest BarTender version free, and get live technical support by phone and chat during business hours with a guaranteed 24hr response time. Free for the first year.	Includes 1 year	Includes 1 year	Includes 1 year	Includes 1 year
Premium Maintenance and Support	Add-on option to Standard Maintenance and Support which provides 24/7 live support access with a guaranteed two hour response time		•	•
Easy-To-Use Design		Professional	Automation	Enterprise	Starter
Easy WYSIWYG template design	Design tools make it easy to create and print professional labels and documents	•	•	•	•
New Document Wizard	An easy-to-follow wizard that ensures proper document settings for quality and printing performance	•	•	•	•
Fonts	Versatile support for OpenType, TrueType, Symbol Font characters and native printer- based fonts	•	•	•	•
Text formatting	Familiar, Word-like tools for you to easily create and format text	•	•	•	•
Transformed Text	Add flair to your text objects with a variety of effects, such as fading, inflating, slanting, and more	•	•	•	•
Shapes and lines	Choose from over 50 shapes and 100 line style combinations	•	•	•	•
Dynamic text and object wrapping	Create dynamic text that wraps inside and around shapes, objects, document borders and more	•	•	•	•
Full color support	Design commercial quality labels using PANTONE and data-sourced colors	•	•	•
Unmatched barcode support	Choose from over 100 1D and 2D symbologies based on over a dozen standards	•	•	•	•
Barcode human readable	Highly configurable human readable text and character formatting options	•	•	•	•
GS1 Application Identifier Data Source Wizard	Autoformat GS1-compliant barcodes	•	•	•	•
Graphics and images	Import more than 70 graphic formats, including AI, PNG, JPG, BMP, TIF, EPS and GIF	•	•	•	•
Symbols	Choose from a wide variety of included symbols and industry-based symbol fonts	•	•	•	•
Tables and grids	Create tables and grids to organize text, barcodes, images and other objects	•	•	•	•
White-on-black printing	Switch objects from black-on-white to white-on-black printing with a single click	•	•	•	•
Front and back template design	Create two-sided “duplex” printing with separate designs for the front and back of your template	•	•	•	•
Image exporting	Export entire template images or specific objects in 35+ formats	•	•	•	•
Embedded revision logging	Capture a revision trail directly in the document — when it was saved, who saved it and additional comments	•	•	•	•
Comprehensive help system	A complete how-to library, accessible both through BarTender and on the web	•	•	•	•
Intelligent Templates™		Professional	Automation	Enterprise	Starter
Label templates	Design and automation tools that leverage data to reduce the number of label files you manage	•	•	•
Conditional printing	Create data-driven automation rules that specify when different objects, layers or templates in your document will visibly print or become hidden	•	•	•
Template selector	Conditionally print one specific template when multiple templates are available in a document	•	•	•
Layers	Template objects may be stacked, hidden and reordered when created on uniquely identifiable layers	•	•	•
Automatic face detection and cropping	Automated image capture creates perfectly cropped photos for ID badges and card printing	•	•	•
Scriptable object properties	Modify the look and feel of template objects by using powerful Visual Basic scripts	•	•	•
Suppression	Ignore the content of a data source under certain conditions	•	•	•
Dynamic data and databases		Professional	Automation	Enterprise	Starter
Advanced serialization	Create serial numbers using comprehensive tools that support alphanumeric, hexadecimal and custom sequencing patterns	•	•	•
Date and time	Dynamically source dates and times from Windows or clock-enabled printers	•	•	•	•
Data validation and processing	Specify data validation rules and automatically correct data or issue warnings	•	•	•	•
Concatenate data	Create text and barcode objects that combine information from multiple data sources	•	•	•	•
Embedded database tables	Create your own database tables that travel with your BarTender document designs	•	•	•
Enhanced database connectivity	Connect document designs to over 20 data sources such as SAP, Oracle, MS SQL, Azure SQL, XML, Excel, text files and more to print dynamically	•	•	•
Named database connections	Name commonly used database connections to quickly add them to new document designs	•	•	•
Database filters	Print select database records using convenient query and filter options	•	•	•
Database sourced tables	Easily create tables using data from a database or external file	•	•	•
Dynamic data preview	See how your document handles real dynamic data during the design process	•	•	•
Dynamic graphics and images	Automatically source images for printing based on selected database records or queries	•	•	•
Visual Basic scripting	Create scripts for custom data processing	•	•	•
Write back to databases	Write back to SQL-based databases to keep track of printed records, serial numbers and much more	•	•	•
Global database field	Centralize a data field and share it between BarTender documents	•	•	•
Advanced global database field	Centralize a data field and share it between BarTender documents and workstations			•
Phrase Library	Build your own library of standard multi-lingual text including auto-translate and TMX export/import			•
Data-entry forms		Professional	Automation	Enterprise	Starter
Powerful form controls	Make data input and selection easy by leveraging over 15 highly configurable form controls	•	•	•
Keyboard and mouse input	Use keyboard and mouse commands to select or enter data into forms at print time	•	•	•
Scanner input	Use a barcode scanner to input information to data-entry forms at print time	•	•	•
Weighing scale input	Populate the weight of an item at print time by connecting your weighing scale to BarTender	•	•	•
Image capture	Capture images at print time for ID cards or event badge printing	•	•	•
Data validation	Reduce user input errors by introducing data validation and error checking	•	•	•
Database record selection	Select or query the correct database records at print time using helpful form controls	•	•	•
Integration and automation		Professional	Automation	Enterprise	Starter
Intelligent Forms	Create forms that run automated processes and actions based on user selections, user input or during certain events		•	•
Document Level Actions	Reduce manual efforts by triggering actions in response to events such as printing		•	•
Business systems	Seamlessly integrate automated label and document printing with any business system (ERP, WMS, or MES), including SAP, Oracle, Infor, Körber, Microsoft, Epicor, NetSuite, Sage, and more		•	•
Integrations	Web services: Use RESTful web services to exchange data in real-time to run actions		•	•
	File drop: Monitor local, network and cloud-based folder locations (including Amazon S3, Dropbox, FwTP/SFTP) to run actions and automate		•	•
	Email: Monitor email reception and print according to its contents		•	•
	TCP/IP sockets: Stream data to run actions using this bidirectional communication method		•	•
	Database monitoring: Monitor when data is inserted or changed in database table fields to run actions		•	•
	RS232 Serial: Run actions when data is received		•	•
	Other: Run actions according to a time schedule or when a message is posted to a Microsoft Message Queue		•	•
Integration data	Integrate automated printing processes using common data structures and formats such as XML, JSON, SAP IDOCs, Oracle XML, ASCII & Unicode coded text-based data		•	•
Integration actions	Enable label printing, database queries, network communications and much more with over 70 action types		•	•
.NET SDK	Seamlessly integrate printing, scheduling and database functionality (including ActiveX Automation and Command Line/Shell Script support)		•	•
.NET SDK (Print Portal and Librarian API)	Seamlessly integrate Print Portal and Librarian revision control functionality (including ActiveX Automation and Command Line/Shell Script support)			•
Printing		Professional	Automation	Enterprise	Starter
Drivers by SeagullTM	More than 6,500 printers and output devices supported to enable high-performance printing	•	•	•	•
Print optimizations	Improve print speed by taking full advantage of printer-based features such as serialization, barcodes, real-time clock, static data and graphic caching	•	•	•	•
Printer configuration and diagnostics	Perform printer management functions in BarTender, bypassing the printer front panel	•	•	•	•
Print productivity	Print labels and documents to any Windows printer driver	•	•	•	•
On-demand and batch printing	Print labels and documents on-demand or batch together using one or more BarTender templates	•	•		•
Print preview	Review your dynamic print jobs before printing	•	•	•	•
RFID, smartcard and magnetic stripe encoding	Encode RFID tags, smartcards and magnetic stripe cards as easily as adding barcodes to your template design	•	•	•
Native PDF generation	Generate PDFs without installing third-party PDF drivers	•	•	•
Printer code templates	Design templates in BarTender and export printer code that can be used with other print systems		•	•
Web printing	Select and print documents using a web browser			•
Printer failover	Automatically redirect to another printer in the event of printer failure			•
Centralized Management		Professional	Automation	Enterprise	Starter
Reprint labels and documents	Reprint identical copies of previously printed labels and documents that may been misplaced or damaged		♦	•
Centralized role-based permission management	Centrally manage user and group roles for printing and management features			•
Centralized document storage	Track and manage the entire organization's label templates in one place			•
Template files and revision control	Manage revisions across the organization - roll out changes in an instant to all users			•
Optimized label design workflows	Define design and publishing workflows to enable management and traceability			•
Define workflow team	Increase team accountability during the label revision and publishing process			•
Workflow Designer	Speed up label design, review and production process with drag and drop visual Workflow Designer			•
System audit trail	Review history of print jobs, document changes, electronic signatures and user actions			•
Security and alerts		Professional	Automation	Enterprise	Starter
Role-based security	Assign permissions to applications and functions using Windows Active Directory users and groups, or local Windows users	•	•	•
Document and printing password	Require a password to design and/or print	•	•	•
Status monitoring	Reports information back to Windows regarding printer/print job status and error conditions	•	•	•	•
Email alerts	Automatically notify IT managers or other operational team members if labeling problems occur		•	•
Electronic signatures	Enable for audit trail accountability and regulatory compliance			•
Document encryption	Secure document usage between validated BarTender workstations			•
Backup and resilient licensing server	Improve business continuity and disaster recovery with high availability options				•

Seagull Bartender System Requirements

Operating System: Windows 10/11, Windows Server 2022, 2019 and 2016, Includes all 32-bit and 64-bit (x64) editions
Hard Disk & Memory 32-bit:4 GB RAM/20GB Hard Drive
Hard Disk & Memory 64-bit:8 GB RAM/20GB Hard Drive
Display Resolution:1024 x 768 (Minimum)/ 1920 x 1080 or better (Recommended)
.Net Framework.NET Framework 4.7.2 or later version is required. The BarTender installer will automatically install all required .NET Framework components.
DatabaseBarTender System Database, Librarian, History Explorer, and Reprint Console require Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or higher (Express or Full edition). Microsoft SQL Server 2014 SP3 Express is included with the BarTender suite.