We have 13 s4m Zebra printers. We try to change from thermal to direct. Which was no problem during our initial test. But when we try to change actual printer that was being place inside a cooler we kept getting a ribbon out error message. What could have cause this.

Changing the setting on the printer The default setting is thermal transfer for this printer. You can change the setting on the printer so it doesn't show you the error any more by doing the following: Press SETUP/EXIT Press Plus (+) to scroll through the different parameters About the 6th parameter is "PRINT METHOD" Press "SELECT" to select the parameter Press Plus (+) or Minus (-) to change to Direct Thermal (no ribbon) Press "NEXT/SAVE" to save your changes If you make the changes to you printer and as soon as it prints it reverts back to thermal transfer, then your label software or your driver are overriding it and you need to make the change there.
Changing the setting in your label software - this will also change the settings for this label only Open your label Make the change under "label setup" or "page setup" inside your label software.
Changing the setting on the driver - this will also change the default settings for all future labels that you create Go to control panel and devices and printers. Locate the driver for your label printer and make the change under "Printing Preferences".