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  2. RPG400-L
  3. September 2018

Re: Any example available to print a PDF stored in database

Greg -

The setup (in hindsight) was not too bad. Zebra could make it easier, but why they are not is beyond me. I supposed they know that PDF-direct for the most part makes their ZPL language (in my opinion) obsolete so they may as well try to profit from it. I’ll answer the forum as I think more people would benefit from knowing how we did it.

Once we realized the PDF-direct was mainstream on desktop printers (HP), we are a Zebra shop and decided to see if Zebra had modern alternatives to ZPL (and ASCII).

We found that their ZD500 label printer supports PDF-Direct (via LinkOS) as an additional $299 license fee. It’s steep for sure. Conspiracy theories aside, once we downloaded and installed their PDF-Direct firmware and license key on the ZD500, created a remote output-que on our AS400 and with a couple of ZPL commands afterwards to allow ,JPG images to be dithered greyscale instead of simple black&white (which made the images look horrible), our test ZD500 has worked flawlessly in our production floor for 8 months.

Just make sure whatever Zebra printer you choose, it supports their new LinkOS system which is what drives PDF-direct. I’ve attached a link to Zebra’s website explaining the feature. We chose ZD500 as it was the lowest tier that supports LinkOS and it had WiFi * Bluetooth in addition to the standard Ethernet connection. The printer and LinkOS license makes for an expensive printer ($1,000) but we justify it from the immense flexibility it gives us to create .PDF’s (which is easy) instead of developing using archaic string commands ZPL. The productivity increase and user-happiness of what we can create via .PDF and printing professional-looking labels has us in the process of replacing all our dinosaur Zebra printers with ZD500’s. It’s nice to create the .PDF’s, and view them on our PC’s first, without ever having to send a test print on a zebra printer. That alone was a huge time saver and saved us from wasting countless labels during development.

Hope this helps.

Eddie



On Sep 7, 2018, at 10:27 AM, Greg Wilburn <gwilburn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Eddie,

I would love for you to explain how to setup a Zebra printer to do the 4x6 PDF labels. You can email me directly if you have time.

I've used PRTSTMF to do exactly what you are doing - I have encountered PDF files that will not print that way (Wayfair changed the software they used to create the PDF and they will no longer direct print).

Thanks,
Greg

-----Original Message-----
From: RPG400-L [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Eddie Gomez
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2018 1:22 PM
To: RPG programming on the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries) <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Any example available to print a PDF stored in database

We store our .PDF files on the IFS. We print our .PDF’s directly from our AS400 with no problem. Like anything IBM, there is a trick.

I print .PDF’s from the IFS using the PRTSTMF developed by Scott Klement.

The “trick” is that in order to print it to a printer, the printer must natively support PDF-Direct. We discovered that most CURRENT off-the-shelf HP printers support PDF-Direct. So once we configured our new $120 HP laser jet printer as a standard 3812 printer, PRTSTMF to that printer output queue works like a charm.

We use this method countless times per day, not just for 8.5x11” paper stock, but also to generate PDF 4x6 shipping labels and print to a Zebra printer which also supports PDF-direct. Works great. It worked so well, we are removing our old HP laser printers that are 10+ years old, and replacing them with new, cheap HP printers right from BestBuy that support PDF-Direct. Our users have been in ecstatic since then.

Hope this helps.

Eddie

On Sep 7, 2018, at 10:12 AM, Justin Taylor <JUSTIN@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

You'll almost certainly need to read the BLOB into an IFS file. From there, there are a number of options. Personally, I've found them to be varying degrees of disappointing, but YMMV.

Options for Printing PDF Stream Files which are Stored in the Integrated File System (IFS):
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=nas8N1018851

Good luck,



-----Original Message-----
From: Mohammad Tanveer [mailto:surgum@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2018 4:12 PM
To: RPG programming on the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries)
<rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Any example available to print a PDF stored in database

Is there any example to create a spool file for a PDF stored in a database table BLOB field? or send it directly to a printer.

Regards

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