{"id":1094,"date":"2026-07-16T13:08:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T21:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/?p=1094"},"modified":"2026-07-16T13:08:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T21:08:19","slug":"using-a-brother-p-touch-label-printer-on-linux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/?p=1094","title":{"rendered":"Using a Brother P-Touch Label Printer on Linux"},"content":{"rendered":"
<h2>Introduction<\/h2>\n<p>If you migrated from Windows to Linux and stopped using an otherwise serviceable Brother P-Touch printer because Brother supplies no current Linux software, there may be a solution.<\/p>\n<p>I have a Brother P-Touch label printer which makes excellent labels.\u00a0 The problem is that for this model (# 2700\/2710 – 10+ years old), Brother does not have software that will run on Linux.\u00a0 When I migrated from Windows 7 to Gentoo Linux as my standard desktop, the use of my P-Touch was only if I manually entered on the P-Touch’s keyboard, or I rebooted back to Windows just so I could use the P-Touch through its software.\u00a0 I asked ChatGPT what my options for Linux were and it concluded I was straight out of luck.\u00a0 Sad was I.<\/p>\n<img class=" wp-image-1096" src="https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/DSC_8474.webp" alt="" width="530" height="608" \/> Brother PT-2700\/2710 Label Printer\n<p> <\/p>\n<h2>Gentoo Linux Console<\/h2>\n<p>A year later, I wondered if ChatGPT may be behind the times, so I consulted with Google search.\u00a0 I found <a href="https:\/\/arnowelzel.de\/en\/about-me">Arno Welzel<\/a>‘s page:<a href="https:\/\/arnowelzel.de\/en\/how-to-use-a-brother-p-touch-label-printer-in-linux"> How to use a Brother P-Touch label printer in Linux<\/a> Arno’s page, in turn acknowledged the problem was solved by Dominic Radermacher at: <a href="https:\/\/dominic.familie-radermacher.ch\/projekte\/ptouch-print\/">P-Touch Label Drucker mit Linux benutzen<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Arno has a fork staged at: https:\/\/codeberg.org\/askaaron\/ptouch-print.git<\/p>\n<p>Anxious and elated was I that there was a solution, I downloaded Radermacher’s code, compiled it and it ran successfully allowing me to print to my P-Touch.<\/p>\n<p>It requires command lines such as:<\/p>\n<pre>.\/ptouch-print --font-size=12 --align=c --chain -c --text " Wire Nuts\\n Caps "\r\n.\/ptouch-print --font-size=16 --align=c --chain -c --text " Headers "\r\n.\/ptouch-print --font-size=24 --align=c --chain -c --text " Microphones "<\/pre>\n<p>But, as my hero <a href="https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@AndreasSpiess">Andreas Spiess<\/a> (the man with the Swiss accent) taught me, “we want more.”\u00a0 Then with ChatGPT, I discovered Huang Rui [GitHub user: <a href="https:\/\/github.com\/vowstar">vowstar<\/a>]Rust based project: <a href="https:\/\/github.com\/vowstar\/ptouch-rs">ptouch-rs<\/a>.\u00a0 ptouch-rs has a full graphical user interface that reminds me of Brother’s Windows interface.\u00a0 I staged the project on my Gentoo workstation and successfully built it.\u00a0 It took less than 6 minutes; there were over 500 crates. My workstation is an Intel processor, vintage 2012, with 24 GB RAM.<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<img class=" wp-image-1097" src="https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/20260715_214804_Wed.png" alt="" width="421" height="263" \/> ptouch-rs Graphical Interface on Intel workstation\n<h2>Raspberry Pi (Trixie)<\/h2>\n<p>The next question I had: will it compile and run on a Raspberry Pi?\u00a0 Answer: <strong>Yes<\/strong>… on Raspberry Pi OS (Debian 13 \u201cTrixie\u201d).\u00a0 I had to modify the code for <em>a clean build<\/em> and submitted to the developer <a href="https:\/\/github.com\/vowstar\/ptouch-rs\/pull\/9">Use Glow renderer for Raspberry Pi 4 compatibility<\/a> and <a href="https:\/\/github.com\/vowstar\/ptouch-rs\/pull\/8">Explicitly type Stroke width as f32<\/a>.\u00a0 Building on a Raspberry Pi 4B with 8 GB ram, it took about 30 minutes to compile.<\/p>\n<img class=" wp-image-1100" src="https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/20260716_13h12m19s_grim.png" alt="" width="445" height="250" \/> Raspberry Pi Desktop with ptouch-rs Interface\n<h2>Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>My Brother PT-2700\/2710 now works from Linux through either the command-line <strong>ptouch-print<\/strong> utility or the nifty graphical <strong>ptouch-rs<\/strong> application. Other Brother P-Touch owners who abandoned Windows may find that their printers are supported as well.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Introduction<\/h2>\n

If you migrated from Windows to Linux and stopped using an otherwise serviceable Brother P-Touch printer because Brother supplies no current Linux software, there may be a solution.<\/p>\n

I have a Brother P-Touch label printer which makes excellent labels.\u00a0 The problem is that for this model (# 2700\/2710 – 10+ years old), Brother does not have software that will run on Linux.\u00a0 When I migrated from Windows 7 to Gentoo Linux as my standard desktop, the use of my P-Touch was only if I manually entered on the P-Touch’s keyboard, or I rebooted back to Windows just so I could use the P-Touch through its software.\u00a0 I asked ChatGPT what my options for Linux were and it concluded I was straight out of luck.\u00a0 Sad was I.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Brother PT-2700\/2710 Label Printer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gentoo Linux Console<\/h2>\n

A year later, I wondered if ChatGPT may be behind the times, so I consulted with Google search.\u00a0 I found Arno Welzel<\/a>‘s page: How to use a Brother P-Touch label printer in Linux<\/a> Arno’s page, in turn acknowledged the problem was solved by Dominic Radermacher at: P-Touch Label Drucker mit Linux benutzen<\/a><\/p>\n

Arno has a fork staged at: https:\/\/codeberg.org\/askaaron\/ptouch-print.git<\/p>\n

Anxious and elated was I that there was a solution, I downloaded Radermacher’s code, compiled it and it ran successfully allowing me to print to my P-Touch.<\/p>\n

It requires command lines such as:<\/p>\n

.\/ptouch-print --font-size=12 --align=c --chain -c --text \" Wire Nuts\\n Caps \"\r\n.\/ptouch-print --font-size=16 --align=c --chain -c --text \" Headers \"\r\n.\/ptouch-print --font-size=24 --align=c --chain -c --text \" Microphones \"<\/pre>\n
But, as my hero Andreas Spiess<\/a> (the man with the Swiss accent) taught me, “we want more.”\u00a0 Then with ChatGPT, I discovered Huang Rui [GitHub user: vowstar<\/a>]Rust based project: ptouch-rs<\/a>.\u00a0 ptouch-rs has a full graphical user interface that reminds me of Brother’s Windows interface.\u00a0 I staged the project on my Gentoo workstation and successfully built it.\u00a0 It took less than 6 minutes; there were over 500 crates. My workstation is an Intel processor, vintage 2012, with 24 GB RAM.<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\"\"
ptouch-rs Graphical Interface on Intel workstation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Raspberry Pi (Trixie)<\/h2>\n
The next question I had: will it compile and run on a Raspberry Pi?\u00a0 Answer: Yes<\/strong>… on Raspberry Pi OS (Debian 13 \u201cTrixie\u201d).\u00a0 I had to modify the code for a clean build<\/em> and submitted to the developer Use Glow renderer for Raspberry Pi 4 compatibility<\/a> and Explicitly type Stroke width as f32<\/a>.\u00a0 Building on a Raspberry Pi 4B with 8 GB ram, it took about 30 minutes to compile.<\/p>\n
\"\"
Raspberry Pi Desktop with ptouch-rs Interface<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n
My Brother PT-2700\/2710 now works from Linux through either the command-line ptouch-print<\/strong> utility or the nifty graphical ptouch-rs<\/strong> application. Other Brother P-Touch owners who abandoned Windows may find that their printers are supported as well.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
<h2>Introduction<\/h2> <p>If you migrated from Windows to Linux and stopped using an otherwise serviceable Brother P-Touch printer because Brother supplies no current Linux software, there may be a solution.<\/p> <p>I have a Brother P-Touch label printer which makes excellent labels.\u00a0 The problem is that for this model (# 2700\/2710 – 10+ years old), Brother does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gfmr_meta_descriptions":[],"_gfmr_multilingual_taxonomy_terms":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,137,136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gentoo","category-printing","category-raspberry-pi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1094"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1104,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions\/1104"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}