I decided to label my systainers.

[RockstarRemodel]

Hey FOG,

Long time Festool fan, short time FOG lurker, first time poster.

I just went through the process of labeling all of my systainers. I've won a few empties and bought a few for other brand tools, and I was tired of seeing my sharpie scribbles of whatever the tool was.

I took Festool's templates (https://www.festool.com/Service/systainer-labels), dropped them right into Pages on my Mac, and added tool art work and text to match the look and feel of the factory labels. (I have some tricks to make this easier if you'd like, just ask in the replies)

I added the dimensions of the systainers to the top of the label for reference if I'm using them as lumber support. Per systainer, 3 of the 4 have my logo and one has a QR code.

It took a while to find the card stock I wanted to use for this. I called around and looked online to order plastic cards, but they all wanted to do large runs of a single image. I looked for printable plastic but mostly those were for laser printers, or transparencies for projectors and too flimsy. Eventually I looked up "waterproof paper" and found my solution. I got a 10 pack of this: Inkjet Teslin Synthetic Paper - 10 Sheetshttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B004PX7ZTC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_CZk4wb1GET0VW

It's only 10 mil so it's still a little flimsy, and would pop out if I slammed the systainers closed, so I used double stick Scotch tape on the top and bottom.

I love them. I feel a lot more professional and orderly. No more grabbing the wrong white box!

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed.

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[copcarcollector]

Rockstar indeed! They look great!! Isn't organization fun---

And,  [welcome] to the FOG!

FYI, Festool offers clear protective covers for those label areas:

Festool 497855 T-Loc Systainer Protective Cover for Labels, 10-Pack, currently $8 for a pack of 10

 

[Joe G]

I use a Mac and would like to know your tricks for printing labels

 

[ThReM]

Nice labels !!

Don't use festool's protective cover. In time, the labels warped with moisture.
If you can using a laminator, it's more durable, and your labels are more readable ;-)

 

[RockstarRemodel]

Hey,

Thanks for the replies and inquiry in my method. This is not the only way to do this, for sure; this is just how I decided to do it. (I also use an iPad and used Pages on Mac and iOS to sync changes on the go as I tweaked and edited the labels before I decided to print. I don't go into that workflow here, just how to do it on Mac.)

I used 3 apps to make the labels, and two are built in! Pages may be free depending on when you bought your Mac. I can't keep up with 's crazy pricing.

Safari
* Download the label templates you want. The blank is very useful.https://www.festool.com/Service/systainer-labels/Pages/Download-Labels.aspx
* I use Google Image search to get the other brands tool photos and logos.

Preview
* Open each .jpg and .pdf one at a time and Export as .png. Close the window. Delete the originals.
* Open newly saved .png's back in Preview.
* Use the magic select tool to highlight the background and hit delete to create a transparent background. In OSX Mountain Lion and earlier there's a button with a pencil in a box that shows you the magic select button. In OSX Yosemite and El Capitain there's a button with a tool box that will give you the magic select tool. Here's a link to a better tutorial than I can write on how to make the background transparent.

-easily-with-preview-for-mac-os-x/
* Save to desktop.

Pages
(You could use Word if you prefer *shudder*)
* Based on the size of the labels, I found that landscape blank worked best to start with. It yields 9 labels. Since I had so many to print, it saved at least one sheet of this $+1 per sheet paper.
* Drop in png's from Festool's site.
* Arrange them with space in between if you like, but I found that they can be right up against each other without any white space, and it saved on cutting time. A little.
* Create text boxes for any text you'd like to add. I couldn't get the exact font but I used 10pt Tahoma regular and bold.
* I filled the background of the text box on the bottom and spread it over to cover the Festool logo on the bottom of the labels where I added another brand logo, like Purdy.
* Drop in the logos and photos and scale them to fit how you'd like. For Fien and Hilti I pasted extra logo png's to fill the whole area.
* Select all (cmd-a), on the sidebar select Arrange, and from the Wrap dropdown select None. This will prevent an overlapped image or text make something else disappear.
* I printed using High Quality Matte Photo paper setting and it came out stellar.

I didn't use the Festool label covers either, mainly because they are not transparent enough, but the moisture is a great point.

If you have any changes, suggestions or questions, please reply. Thanks for reading.

 

[RockstarRemodel]

Well, I just noticed something that I wish I had a week ago. You can fit 12 per page in landscape, not just 9. I attached a screenshot. Select all and set the Object Placement to Stay On Page.