When the mark from my handheld inkjet coder looks pale on the carton, I stop gliding and look at the screen before I run the same line again. A second pass over a faint code only makes a smudge.
What I set before the first glide
I put either a date or a short code on the colour touch screen, and I read it back once. The coder is for that kind of mark on a carton, not for a paragraph. If I meant a batch code, I keep it short enough that one glide can finish it. English is on the on-screen language list, so I switch to English when the labels are not the ones I expect.
How I move the coder
I rest the coder on the carton and glide it in one direction, keeping the face flat so the line stays even. I do not scrub back and forth. The guide I follow for a short batch code says to print it by hand and then check it on the carton, so the check is part of the action, not a later guess. If the first carton in a food run is the one that matters, I treat that first carton as the proof.
When the line is faint
A pale line usually means I lifted the coder before the glide finished, or I started the glide on a dusty patch. I set the same date again, pick a clean face of the carton, and make one full glide. I compare the new mark with the faint one instead of inking over it. The colour touch screen still shows the code I chose, which tells me the fault was the pass, not a cleared setting.
What I keep
I keep one carton with a readable date and one with a readable short code from the same setting session. That pair shows me the screen and the glide were both doing what I asked. I also keep the coder capped and the screen awake long enough to read the code I just used, so the next carton starts from a known mark rather than a blank I have to rebuild. I note the steps on handheldin.co.uk.
