Label Printing Software using ActiveX or .NET

[skemper]

Can anyone suggest software for printing labels that can be communicated with using ActiveX or .NET?  We currently use Nicelabel for this purpose but was wondering if there are any alternatives for automated Labview controlled printing.

Thanks, Steve

[rolfk]

I used NiceLabel in the past (really quite a bit in the past like 10 years ago) for a project for a client since they used that software already. I found interfacing to the NiceLabel software through ActiveX working fine but a little bit limited.

Other solutions I have seen use the Zebra label printers. There is one person here on the forums, Mark Yedinak who works at that company and has helped in the past with questions about interfacing to these printers directly from LabVIEW without additional intermediate drivers trough the ZPL scripting language. Even their USB based devices can simply be addressed as a serial device through NI-VISA.

Also there are some resources on this site such as: https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA00Z0000019WlfSAE&l=nl-NL

[JÞB]

NiceLabel helps format "tidy" instructions that can be used by industry standard label printers. 

Many of these printers can use multiple printer format instructions.   ZPL, or Zebra Printer Language,  is a common instruction set for label printing.  

The method for interfacing print commands to a specific label printer depends on the printer!  

So, we are left with more questions than answers:

• What hardware is printing labels?  
• What media is it printing on?
• How big is the label?
• What do you want the label to have?  Logos? Serial enumeration fields? Datecodes? 2d/3d barcode fonts?

Seriously,  even Mark Yedniak, (who has much experience with label printing products) wouldn't ask about how to interact with a 3rd party label format generation application ...

Hint: just butcher the text file that NiceLabel outputs and send that to the printer with the updated fields.   

My respects to the crew of the Edmond Fitzgerald!