Printing barcode using LabVIEW from Zebra GT800

[ajit2003]

Hello,

I have Zebra GT800 printer and I am trying to print a 1D barcode with label using LabVIEW. I have connected my printer using USB. What EPL commands do I need to give so as to print the barcode?

[Stuart.Parkinson]

Your question is answered by the EPL Programming Guide

However, being a long and complex manual, if you are lazy and want a shortcut then you can use the software which comes with your printer to design the label you want to print, then print the label to a file (rather than to the printer). Locate the barcode data in the file (easier if you print a barcode with an easily identifiable string). Use the text file as a starting point and just replace the data string in your code and send it to the printer.

This method has worked well for me on other similar printers. Care has to be taken if you use anything other than the standard font because the data sent to the printer includes non-standard font information but only for the characters it needs, so your original file should include all characters you may need (eg. all the digits).

Alternatively, read the manual!

[Sam_Sharp]

We have also used ActiveX to print labels on Zebra printers using Bartender (label printing software). It's only a handful or so of ActiveX calls to load up a label template, populate fields and then print. It obviously requires the software and a license though.

[ajit2003]

Hey Stuart,

Thanks for the reply. Your idea worked will you please tell me how to work with this in LabVIEW. I mean how to give the print command from LabVIEW.

[Stuart.Parkinson · Accepted solution]

Well, before I was using .net and a serial connected printer, and we just called a shell command to copy the file to the com port with a command like "COPY /B PRINT.PRN COM1".

I'm sure that would work from LabView too, but there may be more elegant ways. I've never done any printing direct from labview so I'm not sure, but a quick bit of googling (which I'm sure you can do yourself as well as I can) seems to suggest that using system exec vi is the way to go.

To access a USB printer might be more tricky. One way is to share the printer on the network and then map it to an LPT port with a command somethng like "net use LPT1 \\<shared printer>" from a command prompt (you might want to check the help on that command as this is just from memory) - it then becomes directly available to dos and you can use the COPY /B LPT1 command to send your file to it.

If anyone has a better suggestion for sending data from Labview to a printer then I would like to know.