Using a Zebra printer

Hi,

I want to print labels with a normal label report in Windev14 using a Zebra GK420d or GX420t desktop printer. But this is giving problems as only the last label is printed. Also the command ..NbLabelCopy is not working. I am using a standard report because I want to give the users the possibility to change the label layout.
Does somebody has some experience or a solution for this please ?

Freddy

Hi Freddy...

what you describe looks like a printer driver problem to me... Did you check for a newer version of the driver on zebra's web site?

Best regards

Fabrice,

I have been downloading the latest drivers from the Zebra website and installed them but nothing changed.
I will develop a workaround but I will continue searching for a good solution.

Kind regards

Freddy

Hello Freddy,

When I have problems with Zebra printers, I usually use Seagull drivers.
Have a look at :
http://www.seagullscientific.com/aspx/thermal_95.aspx
ftp://ftp.seagullscientific.com/drivers/archive/7.1/7.1.6/Zebra_7.1.6.exe

Good luck,

Michel Fages

Hi Michel,

Nice-Drivers, Seagull Drivers and a few others mostly work differently from the drivers supplied by manufacturers! Nice, Seagull etc have a simple principle: they're 'printing' the label to a memory-image and send that single image per label to the printer. Advantage is that the printer will print any typeface and any fontsize that is printable using MS-Windows and the driver doesn't need to know anything else than how to print that one image. Disadvantage is, if labels of big batches differ a lot from each other, printing will become very slow.

Usually, you can get faster output using the manufacturer's Windows-driver, because those drivers mostly, not always, are using a different approach. They're able to use the printer-internal fonts, produce command strings for the specific printer and can avoid sending a single picture. However, some manufacturers (TEC) add the Seagull or Nice drivers to some of their printers.

Speed becomes even better if one's using the printer's internal command language and print to it by sOpen(..) and so on. Here, im most cases you have to use the internal printer fonts except there is a command for uploading fonts to the printer. Usually, internal fonts and barcodes of those printers are good enough for production purposes.

Kind regards,
Guenter

Quote
Freddy
Hi,

I want to print labels with a normal label report in Windev14 using a Zebra GK420d or GX420t desktop printer. But this is giving problems as only the last label is printed. Also the command ..NbLabelCopy is not working. I am using a standard report because I want to give the users the possibility to change the label layout.
Does somebody has some experience or a solution for this please ?

Freddy

Hi Freddy,
I suspect, that using a WinDev standard report for labels can mean two different things:

1 - A set of labels on a single page (let's say 2 labels horizontally and 5 labels vertically)

2 - and it can mean to print a single label.

What you want, is 2 - printing on a single label !!!

So, forget about the 'label' report and use a simple standard report!

Set page size to the label size. 1 label = 1 page of the report.

You can even define ANY page size for the printer driver (if it has no appropriate settings tab) through Windows! This is hidden a bit. Use System Setting .. Printers .. Just click once on the Zebra printer .. choose Printer Server Properties to define any label size!

Kind regards,
Guenter

Hi,

Don't the standard zebra printer drivers expect labels to be sent in their proprietry language - something like the following??? (A blank line before the 'N' contains a specific ASCII char to reset the printer ready for a new label):

N
A230,5,0,3,2,2,N,"XYZ Cycle Shop"
A230,45,0,3,1,1,N,"Shimano"
A480,45,0,3,1,1,N,"9999.99"
A230,65,0,3,1,1,N,"XT 32 Hole Hubs"
B245,90,0,E30,3,5,70,B,"123456789012"
A250,185,0,3,1,1,R,"www.xyzcycles.co.uk"
P1

You don't say if you've turned this "proprietry interpreter" off or what you are doing to by-pass the fact that MS Windows may be trying to "help" you by stripping out any control charcaters etc...

Thanks to everybody for the replys.
I have solved my problem. I wanted to send al labels in one batch but this is not possible because the command ..NbLabelCopy is not working for the Zebra printer. When goods are delivered labels have to be printend with a different quantity of labels for each label.
I print the labels now in a loop, executing the report for each label with the quantity of labels through the iparameter() command. This is working nice.
The reason I use a standard report is because I want to give the users the possibility to change the layout of the label.


Kind regards

Freddy