Printing to zebra printer

[Zathros]

I'm trying to set up a zebra thermal label printer. The printer is attached to a pc, which can print a test page to it. It is shared and accessble on the network. I have it defined in visionfs.

I can't get any output from a unix cat or lp Command.

I'll mainly be printing from BBx through a product called unform which has a zebra definition.

Should I be able to get out put from a command line with this printer? I'm assuming no.

Anyone have one of these working like this?

 

[jlasman]

Well, if you program the output in ZPL(I assume), then
you should be fine from the command line.

We just did some labels for a wireless zebra printer
and it worked without problems. This was using filepro
on SCO.


Jim Asman

 

[motoslide]

I agree 100%. If you could capture a job from the PC (which already includes the proper command set), then you could re-send that from the UNIX box using standard lp commands.
Make sure you add the "--raw" option to VisionFS. We use Unform (and BBx) and graphics will get mangled without using RAW mode.

 

[Hemo]

We've set up a Zebra printer. It worked fine via ethernet internal print server and sending it ZPL program from command line. I think if you do not send it a ZPL program it will just sit and stare at you.

 

[Zathros]

Thanks for all the replys. I don't have a clue about zpl programming.

Previously I have written a program to print to a UPS barcode printer which but that printed directly to the printer bypassing the lp spool and sent all the commands from BBX.

There aren't any printer manuals.

I'll keep hacking away at this!

 

[Hemo]

You can get the ZPL/ZPL II guides and manuals directly from the Zebra web site.

http://www.zebra.com/id/zebra/na/en/index/products/accessories/user_guides.html

This link will let you specify your printer model, and then choose the programming manual, you can download the PDF:

http://www.zebra.com/id/zebra/na/en/index/resource_library/manuals.html

I hope that helps. We only did very basic things like drawing boxes, lines, barcodes and text. We created a standard text file with the 'program' or ZPL II flavored output, if you will, and then used lp services to send it off to the printer.

You may wish to (if you haven't already) post questions about ZPL in the general printer forum:

http://www.tek-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=929

I guess I don't follow that forum so have no idea if there are any folks over there that understand Zebra's ZPL II language.

 

[Bigdaddynavarre]

Can you print to the printer with a visionfs printing command?

 

[Zathros]

No, I couldn't. I finally quit trying since I was expending way too much effort just to print a mailing label. I got out an old panasonic dot matrix and it was printing labels within 10 minutes.

The Zebra labels would have been nicer I know.