Comments on: zebra printer as/400

By: bigmac46

bigmac46 — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:53:55 +0000

and 4114’s
should have been
4214s

By: bigmac46

bigmac46 — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:23:12 +0000

If you search this site there are examples of how to set up output to a zebra using ZPL and printing simple labels. We use several models of printers based on the need at the location. We still have ha ve twinax connected zebras definead as 4214s and 5224s. We also have zebras connected as Client access printers and defined as generic text printers on the PC and 4114′s on the 400. We did have 1 IP connected but we always have a dumb terminal or PC at the same location so we use that device as a connection poit for the Zebra. In one location we have 2 zebras and a 2500 series dotmatrix all connected to the same PC. The device type and connection type is transparent tothe zebra. We create all our labels in house(including UPS labels) and normally use QSYSPRT spoolfiles. As WoodEngineer says – when the ZPL code is embeded in the string it just works. The zebras really don’t care how they are connect as long the outq gets the spoolfile to them.
Another repeat – get the manual from Zebra.

By: woodengineer

woodengineer — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:00:00 +0000

In another life I printed to a Zebra attached to an AS/400 using twinax. That will give you an idea of how long ago it way. We configured the printer as the most basic character-based printer. It might have been a model 5224 printer.

The print file was a single field of 80 or more characters. We wrote the ZPL commands and data to the print file in clear text. Everything was human readable when the print file was displayed. It seems there was a special character that replaced one of the ZPL command-related characters. Might have been the Lazy L, i.e. the character that looks like an L on its side.

The Zebra operated somewhat like a laser printer in that it does not print until the whole label is written to the spool followed by a character string that is the print-it-now command. Again this is contained in the print file in clear text.

The manual will be invaluable, as Philpl1jb recommends. “Don’t leave home without it.”

One thing that caused us some grief at the beginning was not using the correct reference point when specifying the X and Y coordinates for the print data. Once that was corrected we started to see data on the tickets. This was a jewelry applications – you know those little tags you see on rings at the store. There was not a lot of real estate to work with. By using the wrong reference point it turned out that we were coding data to print in an area which did not land on our tags.

Hope this helps. The Zebra is a great printer. It served us very will with almost no problems.

By: philpl1jb

philpl1jb — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 02:47:31 +0000

What printer has your RPG UPS program been printing to?
Was it designed to print to a Zebra printer.
You will want to get the Zebra programmers manual from Zebra.COM
But you must know which Zebra you have.
Your program will have to send escape codes to prepare the printer and locate at the correct positions–it might already do that if you’ve been printing to a similar printer.
Phil