NWP on Label Stock

[Gabriel]

I'm trying to use NWP to print Barcode labels on a zebra printer. Most of the time we've done something like this, its worked fine. But now, on the shipping computer, we're trying to do it and we get really strange results. Does anyone know a printer setting that might address this issue:

The labels are 4x6.

If we print with Print Preview turned on, the Print Preview window opens up with a 4.88 x 11.00 inch preview window. If we click Print right away the central part of this 4.88x11.00 inch window is what prints - so we see only the right part of the printout printing off the left edge of the label.

If we click "Select Printer" the printer settings show 4x6 like they should. If we then click OK, the print preview window changes to show a 4x6 preview, and now the label prints correctly.

Let me say that again: We print the label using Print Preview. The preview window shows the wrong size. Then we simply click "Select Printer" change nothing and immediately click "Ok", and everything works.

If we change it to bypass the Print Preview window entirely, we still have the problem, it shows only the right part of the printout printing off the left edge of the label.

What on earth could cause it to screw up in such a way that simply clicking "Select Printer" then "Ok" would fix the problem?

How can we fix it so that it prints these labels correctly without the need for the user to click "Select Printer" then "Ok" every time? (They'll be doing this several hundred times every day, and I want ideally for the labels to simply come out of the printer with no user interaction.)

Gabriel

PS We had the problem on another computer when we first started printing barcode labels a while back - only problem is, nobody can remember what we did to fix it...

[Gabriel]

So we're getting close to getting it to work by writing an AutoIT script that simulates clicking on the Select Printer then clicking on the Ok, then clicking the Print, and Close buttons.

But of course that gets confused when we send two print jobs at once.


I'm writing code now to create a "hold.txt" data file that the autoit script can delete when its done running and that BR can check and use to wait until the previous printout autoit script has finished running.

But this is really messy, and its just begging to fail. There has to be a way to print on 4x6 paper from BR without using Print Preview and without having to click on "Select Printer" and "Ok" every time... Gordon? Any ideas?

Gabriel

[bluesfannoz]

Try adding this to your printer definitions file

Code: Select all

PRINTER NWP [POSTCARD], "\E&l71A" ! 100mm x 148mm

And then in your output to the printer put

Code: Select all

[POSTCARD]

See if that properly sets it to A6 size paper

[bluesfannoz]

Make sure you catch that I initially had PRINTER PCL.. That should have been PRINTER NWP I edited the original post

[Gabriel]

Thanks I caught it. And thanks for the suggestion. I'm trying it now.

I'd searched for a while to find the PCL code for A6 but what I found was a different code and it didn't work.

[Gabriel]

It didn't seem to affect anything.

Gabriel

[bluesfannoz]

What is the default printer for Windows set to btw?

[bluesfannoz]

Also what version of BR are you using?

[Gabriel]

We've tried many times on different computers with different default printers. We've tried it with the zebra printer as the default and we've tried it with something else as the default. We get the same results both times.

We're opening the printer by name: "name=WIN:/ZEBRA 2844-Z" so (in theory) the windows default shouldn't come into play.. thats not to say thats not the source of the bug though..


Its BR version 4.31hc.

Gabriel

[GomezL]

Opening with "name=WIN:/ZEBRA 2844-Z" will send the print job through the Windows Drivers.

Try using "name=DIRECT:/ZEBRA 2844-Z" this will send the "PCL Code directly to the printer bypassing the windows driver.

[Gabriel]

The only problem with that is we're using NWP for the printout. Thats why we wanted to send it using Windows commands.. We're using a Barcode font installed through windows on the pc to make the barcode. We're using NWP positioning commands and font commands and everything.

But we can try it just to see what happens..

Gabriel

[bluesfannoz]

We've tried many times on different computers with different default printers. We've tried it with the zebra printer as the default and we've tried it with something else as the default. We get the same results both times.

We're opening the printer by name: "name=WIN:/ZEBRA 2844-Z" so (in theory) the windows default shouldn't come into play.. thats not to say thats not the source of the bug though..


Its BR version 4.31hc.

Gabriel

This seems very familiar to a bug I reported to Dan long ago and he fixed. Can you see if it does the same thing in 4.20o?

[Gabriel]

Ok, tried that. It doesn't print anything at all in Direct Mode. Nothing is sent to the printer at all for some reason.

So far, the only way we can get it working is by using Print Preview, then noticing how it comes up incorrectly in the print preview window (with a 4 x 11 inch preview window) then clicking "Select Printer" then clicking "Ok" without changing anything, then clicking "Print" and finally clicking "Close".

We have not been able to get it to work any other way.

[Gabriel]

Steve, I just saw your message. Sorry ... I didn't try it because too many of their programs probably don't even work under 4.2 anymore, but maybe.

We ended up getting it to work by setting a Left Margin of 50 characters to shove everything over to the right.

Remember the ultimate symptom of the problem is that its printing the label about 5 inches off the left of the page, because it thinks the paper is 4x11 but really its 4x6. So setting a left margin of 5 inches (50 characters) did the trick and pushed it into the printable space.

Its really hokey but it works for now.

[bluesfannoz]

Could you possibly have it output what your sending to the printer to a file instead and post it? That way I would experiment with it and see if I can come up with a solution.