Although Brother states that Linux is supported for the QL-810W and they even provide a driver package, installing and using the Brother QL-810W on Ubuntu (and probably other modern Linux OSes) can be a little tricky.

First, download the Debian package and install it from the command line with

sudo dpkg -i --force-all ql810wpdrv-<version>.i386.deb

That adds the QL810W printer as a local USB printer. If you would like to print via network, open the Advanced Printer Settings and change and adjust the Device URI in the printer’s properties.

While you are in that properties dialog, go to Printer Options and select the correct Media Size (This is the most important setting of all!).If you want to make sure that the borders of your labels remain as defined in your application, set Trim tape under Cut Option to Off.

Network Protocols

Since I am not fan of black magic like Zeroconf, Avahi, mDNS, I have only kept

• Web Based Management (Web Server)
• IPP
• SNTP

enabled on the Network > Protocol page in the printer’s web management tool.

Label Sizes

For some reason, the “length” of a label cannot exceed 10cm on Linux although continuous labels are used and correctly selected in the printer properties. If you would like to print out larger labels, you need to add custom label sizes with the corresponding tool that comes with the driver package:

sudo brpapertoollpr_ql810w -P QL810W -n "62mmx190mm" -w 62 -h 190
sudo brpapertoollpr_ql810w -P QL810W -n "38mmx190mm" -w 38 -h 190

I used the above two for creating labels for Leitz folders with OpenOffice Draw.

AppArmor

In Brother’s FAQ there is an entry regarding AppArmor and setting the mode to complain for the CUPS service if printing does not work. In my case printing works flawlessly if the setting remains in enforce mode. So for security reasons, I would not recommend to change it to complain.