Send Raw Data to ZPL Printer using Visual Basic (MS Access 2000)

Question

This is all that I can find, none of them work.

Option Compare Database Option Explicit

  Private Type DOCINFO
      pDocName As String
      pOutputFile         


        

Answer 1

My solution for Zebra

1. Creating a generic/text printer in windows then sending to raw file to this printer
2. In Zebra printers advanced settings --> others, there is a passthrough characters. You can send raw text with this to this printer.

Answer 2

What I like to do is do something similar to your Method 2, but save it to a file (the raw printer data) and then do a file copy to the UNC path.

file copy "C:\label.txt" \computername\sharename

That works for me.

Answer 3

Okay so this is how I managed to get thing this work. Not a best option as I wanted but ... it works.

1) I use the same function, but written in C++, taken from here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/138594/EN-US

// RawDataToPrinter - sends binary data directly to a printer
   // 
   // Params:
   //   szPrinterName - NULL terminated string specifying printer name
   //   lpData        - Pointer to raw data bytes
   //   dwCount       - Length of lpData in bytes
   // 
   // Returns: TRUE for success, FALSE for failure.
   // 
   BOOL RawDataToPrinter(LPSTR szPrinterName, LPBYTE lpData, DWORD dwCount)
   {
     HANDLE     hPrinter;
     DOC_INFO_1 DocInfo;
     DWORD      dwJob;
     DWORD      dwBytesWritten;

     // Need a handle to the printer.
     if( ! OpenPrinter( szPrinterName, &hPrinter, NULL ) )
       return FALSE;

     // Fill in the structure with info about this "document."
     DocInfo.pDocName = "My Document";
     DocInfo.pOutputFile = NULL;
     DocInfo.pDatatype = "RAW";
     // Inform the spooler the document is beginning.
     if( (dwJob = StartDocPrinter( hPrinter, 1, (LPSTR)&DocInfo )) == 0 )
     {
       ClosePrinter( hPrinter );
       return FALSE;
     }
     // Start a page.
     if( ! StartPagePrinter( hPrinter ) )
     {
       EndDocPrinter( hPrinter );
       ClosePrinter( hPrinter );
       return FALSE;
     }
     // Send the data to the printer.
     if( ! WritePrinter( hPrinter, lpData, dwCount, &dwBytesWritten ) )
     {
       EndPagePrinter( hPrinter );
       EndDocPrinter( hPrinter );
       ClosePrinter( hPrinter );
       return FALSE;
     }
     // End the page.
     if( ! EndPagePrinter( hPrinter ) )
     {
       EndDocPrinter( hPrinter );
       ClosePrinter( hPrinter );
       return FALSE;
     }
     // Inform the spooler that the document is ending.
     if( ! EndDocPrinter( hPrinter ) )
     {
       ClosePrinter( hPrinter );
       return FALSE;
     }
     // Tidy up the printer handle.
     ClosePrinter( hPrinter );
     // Check to see if correct number of bytes were written.
     if( dwBytesWritten != dwCount )
       return FALSE;
     return TRUE;
   }

I got the file RAWPRN.EXE from there, put my EPL code in a txt file. Finally, use Shell to execute it

Dim RetVal
RetVal = Shell("cmd .exe /c C:\rawprint\RawPrint.exe ""ZDesigner LP 2844"" ""C:\eplcode.txt""", 1)

Answer 4

if it is mapped to a parallel or com port, you can open that directly:

open "LPT1:" For Output as #1
' or open "COM1:"
print #1, "SomeData"
Close #1