Re: Label Printers ?

On Tue, 2005-01-18 at 13:38 -0500, Chuck Lewis wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
>  
> 
> I!/ve been approached about the feasibility of creating an application to
> produce labels for our shipping folks. We are a wholesale distributor and do
> a lot of transfers between branches (10). These transfer items range in size
> from tiny to water heater size or bigger. It is the smaller items that are
> an issue. You could throw a number of small items into a bag, seal it and
> stick it in a box. They want labels to stick on these bags to note what
> transfer items are in them. They will enter a transfer number and that will
> show them all the items on the transfer and then THEY can choose how many
> labels they need. This information will consist of a 6 position Item # and a
> 30 character Description. We currently printer Bin Labels (here in mass 
> not at the branches) and Customer mailing labels on the standard 3 (v x 
> 15/16
> !0Avery!1 labels.
> 
Most roll label printers are not difficult to control from the iSeries,
particularly if they are network printers with LPD servers in them.  In
that case, a remote output queue can send spool files to them, and the
iSeries can manage the conversation just fine.

I recently did a label and wristband job for a customer using a Datamax
M4208 reel printer.  Learned the printer 'language' and wrote it up in a
couple days.  

We also evaluated a Zebra similar to the datamax.  I can't recall the
exact model, but I found the 'ZPL' programming language even easier than
the datamax language.  

The only reason we didn't select the zebra was that the wristband stock
we wanted to use didn't fit correctly in the zebra.

The simple example from the ZPL II programmers manual looks like:

# Start of label
^XA

# Set label home 30 dots down and right from the top
^LH30,30

# print field containing word 'Zebra' at 20,10
^FO20,10^AD^FDZebra^FS

# print code 3 of 9 barcode 'AAA001' at 20,60
^FO20,60^B3^FDAAA001^FS

# end of label
^XZ

Not too hard, eh?  Just have to spool that text to a spooled file.  It
does need to be sent to the printer in ASCII, though.  I created a
*USERASCII print file, and used the iconv API to translate just before
writing to the spooled file.


--
Regards,
Rich

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