Re: Printing in Java

[Tamas Perlaky <tamas@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Rick,

There are two different issues here: (1) printing from Java and (2)  
printing to a thermal printer.

Printing from Java is relatively easy; the standard Java libraries  
include reasonably good printing APIs for obtaining a printer,  
creating pages, and using graphics primitives to populate the pages  
with text and/or graphics.  This works great when printing to today's  
typical output devices (laser printers, etc.).  It doesn't work so  
well for printing to line printers (dot matrix or whatever), and when  
I've had to do that in the past I've gone a bit lower level and just  
sent a text stream directly to the printer port, an approach which  
has plenty of its own issues and for which someone else may have a  
better solution.

With thermal printers (at least in the warehouse/shipping  
environments that I've worked with them in) the challenge is that  
each one has it's own printer control language to define the label  
and send data to the printer.  It's really a lot like printing to a  
line printer, except instead of printing lines of text you're  
printing control instructions.  Some thermal printers come with  
windows printer drivers that allow you to treat them as a regular  
windows printer (and there are third-party drivers available also)  
and while that would allow you to use the normal Java printing APIs  
but it would also mean that each label would be sent to the thermal  
printer as a bitmap, which tends to be grossly inefficient compared  
to sending raw control instructions.

If I had to do this, my approach would actually be to use a label  
printing tool (my choice would be Seagull Scientific's BarTender) to  
drive the actual label printing.  The way that would work is you'd  
define the label layout using their GUI interface, and then from your  
Java code you'd either create a CSV data file or populate some DB2  
tables which the label design is tied to, and let BarTender worry  
about the details of sending that to the printer.  You can get an  
unlimited-user three-printer Enterprise license of BarTender for  
under $800, which is I suspect is much less than the cost of going it  
alone.  The main downside of this is that BarTender is Windows only  
(but the printer can be connected via the network).

Alternately you could just use the regular Java printing system with  
a Windows driver, or you could hit the books and learn the control  
language for your printer and control the printer directly.  Many  
current thermal printers actually have a direct network interface, so  
depending on the model you might be able to avoid issues of having to  
send data directly to a serial or parallel port.

Hope some of this rambling helps!

(Oh also, just in terms of general printing, there are lots of  
libraries both free and commercial to help you do printing/reporting  
from Java.  I haven't used one is several years as I do all my  
reporting to PDF via iText, but if it wasn't for the thermal printer  
requirement here I'd recommend looking around for one of those, too.)

t.

On 1-Feb-07, at 9:07 AM, Rick DuVall wrote:

> Hi Group,
>
>     I have written several swing apps (desktop client ->
> iSeries-i5-whatever), but have never used java to print anything.   
> I now
> have a need to produce print-out on a little thermal printer as  
> part of the
> new app I'm working on.  Can anybody point me in the right  
> direction?  What
> I've found so far seems a bit convoluted. ;)  Of course much of  
> java has
> struck me that way... <smile>
>
>     I continue to dig, but pointers are always welcome.  Thanks in  
> advance!
>
> Regards,
>
> Rick DuVall
> Systems Manager
> Dealer's Auto Auction of Okc, Inc.
>  <mailto:rick@xxxxxxxxxx> rick@xxxxxxxxxx
> (405) 947-2886
>  <http://www.nothingisreal.com/dfki/no-word>
> http://www.nothingisreal.com/dfki/no-word
>
> --
> This is the Java Programming on and around the iSeries / AS400  
> (JAVA400-L) mailing list
> To post a message email: JAVA400-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
> visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/java400-l
> or email: JAVA400-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
> at http://archive.midrange.com/java400-l.