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Herbarium label maker: printable plant specimen labels from Darwin Core fields or a CSV, as PDF

Make herbarium specimen labels in your browser. Fill in a Darwin Core form or paste a CSV of many specimens, choose the heading, date and coordinate style, and print several labels per page or download a PDF and a clean Darwin Core CSV.

Keep it one tap away for everyday use.

Bookmark Herbarium label maker?

Press Ctrl + D now. Your browser opens its own bookmark box, where you choose the name and folder.

  1. Specimens
  2. Style
  3. Labels
  4. PDF, CSV
Nothing is uploadedWorks offline once open

Add a specimen

Fill in what you have; only the scientific name is needed. Dates as YYYY-MM-DD; coordinates in decimal degrees (south and west negative).

Specimens

Column names may have a dwc: prefix, any capitals, or common names such as collector, date, latitude and elevation. Other columns are ignored, and adding a specimen from the form keeps only the Darwin Core columns. Up to 2,000 specimens. Nothing is saved or sent: copy the CSV out before you close the page. The example specimens are made up.

Labels

The heading can use any field in braces, such as {country} or {institutionCode}; empty ones are left out. Scientific names are set in italics, with rank words (subsp., var.) and the authors in roman. Text shrinks to fit when a label is full.

Preview

What it does

Every pressed plant in a herbarium carries a label with what it is, where and when it was collected, and by whom. This tool turns specimen records into neat, consistent labels, several to a page, ready to print on archival paper. The records use Darwin Core, the standard field names used by GBIF and most herbarium databases, so the same data can go straight into a collection database.

How to use it

  1. Add specimens. Either fill in the form and press Add to the list, or paste a table into the Specimens box, or open a CSV, TSV, TXT or Excel file. The first row names the columns with Darwin Core terms such as scientificName, recordedBy, recordNumber, eventDate, locality, decimalLatitude and decimalLongitude. A dwc: prefix, any capitals and common names (collector, date, latitude, elevation) are understood. Other columns are ignored.
  2. Check the warnings. The tool flags a missing name, latitudes outside −90 to 90, longitudes outside −180 to 180, dates that are not YYYY-MM-DD or do not exist, and elevations that are not numbers.
  3. Choose the style and look at the preview.
  4. Download PDF, Print, or Download CSV to keep a clean Darwin Core table of your specimens.

Options

  • Heading: the top line. Use any field in braces, such as Plants of {stateProvince}, {country} or {institutionCode} Herbarium. Empty fields are left out with their commas.
  • Dates: 14 May 2026, short months, the herbarium style 14.v.2026 with a Roman-numeral month (which cannot be misread as day/month or month/day), or ISO 2026-05-14.
  • Coordinates: degrees-minutes-seconds (45°24’36.0”N), decimal degrees, or both. The uncertainty in metres is added when given.
  • Elevation: metres, or metres with feet.
  • Paper, labels per page (1, 2, 4, 6 or 8 in two columns) and copies of each specimen (for duplicates sent to other herbaria).
  • Cut lines: dashed lines around each label for trimming.

Scientific names are set in bold italics, with rank words (subsp., var., f., cf.) and the authors in roman, as botanical convention asks. When a label has too much text for its space, the text shrinks to fit.

Worked example

The three made-up specimens make 3 labels on 1 page at four per A4 page. The second label reads, from the top: PLANTS OF ONTARIO, CANADA; CYPERACEAE; Carex flava subsp. jemtlandica (Palmgr.) Palmgr.; “Fen margin near the north shore, Ontario, Canada.”; 45°23’16.8”N 78°09’15.8”W ±15 m. Elev. 395 m.; the habitat and remarks; “A. Example; B. Sample 102 30.vi.2026”; “Det. B. Sample, 2.vii.2026”; and XYZ 000124 at the bottom right.

Tips

  • Print on acid-free, archival paper with a laser printer; inkjet ink can run when wet.
  • The PDF uses the standard Times fonts, which cover Western European letters (é, ñ, ü, ×, °). For other scripts use Print, which uses your computer’s fonts. The page tells you if any character was left out of the PDF.
  • Keep your CSV: it is your specimen database in a standard form.

FAQs

Is anything saved? No. Nothing is stored in your browser or sent anywhere, so download the CSV before closing the page.

Can it make barcodes? Not yet; the catalogue number is printed as text.

Is my data uploaded? No. Everything runs in your browser.

Where the numbers come from

  • Field names: Darwin Core terms, Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG), dwc.tdwg.org/terms (CC BY 4.0). Term names only.
  • Label layout follows common herbarium practice (heading, family, name in italics with authors in roman, locality, coordinates, elevation, habitat, collector and number, date, determiner). Written by fibub.
  • Checked in the tests against Python's standard library: CSV written by csv.DictWriter is read correctly here and our CSV is read back by csv.DictReader (quotes, commas and line breaks inside fields); dates checked with datetime; degrees-minutes-seconds checked against an independent conversion.
  • The example specimens are made up.

Standard scientific values, such as constants, atomic weights and melting points, are facts found in every textbook; we name where ours were checked. If you are an author or publisher and want a value, a credit or a table changed or removed, tell us and we will act quickly.

Last updated 2026-11-09.

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