Printer languages

Applies to: BarcoderX Basic and Ultimate

Status: Planned. Nothing is released yet and there is nothing to download. ZPL and EPL come first. The other four languages come after the first release. The details of each language are checked against the printer makers' programming guides before each language is released.

A printer language is the set of commands a printer understands. BarcoderX calls each one a dialect. BarcoderX turns one label layout into the commands of the dialect your printer speaks.

ZPL, EPL, ESC/POS, Fingerprint, Direct Protocol and PCL are names of printer languages that belong to their owners. BarcoderX uses them only to say which language it writes.

Which languages, and when

Each language is a separate add-on to the engine. Adding one changes no template and no part of the web API. Each language has its own entitlement, and a printer language without an entitlement still prints, with marked output. See Editions and licensing.

Each language ships with generic printer profiles for the resolutions its printers use. A profile describes what a printer can do and does not name a brand, so a printer that emulates a language uses that language's profile.

What differs between ZPL and EPL

Under the default Fidelity intent, EPL output is mostly graphics, with the printer's own barcodes and shapes. Text outside the selected code page always prints as a picture.

ZPL

• BarcoderX writes complete formats with the label setup: width, length, home position, media tracking, media type, print mode, speed, darkness and orientation.
• Text in a printer-resident font is sent as the printer's own text. All other text is sent as a picture, because the printer cannot match the shapes of the fonts in your template. Sending TrueType fonts to the printer is planned for later.
• Graphics use the smallest of three forms that the printer supports.
• BarcoderX plans to use the printer's own barcode command for these symbologies, one at a time as each is proven equal to the preview: Code 128 and the GS1-128 and SSCC-18 forms, Interleaved 2 of 5 and ITF-14, EAN and UPC, Code 39, Code 93, Data Matrix, QR Code, PDF417, MicroPDF417, the GS1 DataBar family, Aztec Code and MaxiCode in the first release, and a longer list in later releases.
• RFID encoding writes EPC data and other tag memory, and can verify the write on printers that support it.

EPL

• BarcoderX writes complete forms with label setup: width, length and gap, reference point, speed, density and direction.
• Text uses the printer's own bitmap fonts only when every character is inside the selected code page. Otherwise the text is sent as a picture.
• Lines, boxes and a first set of linear barcodes use the printer's own commands: Code 128, Code 39, Code 93, Interleaved 2 of 5, EAN-13, EAN-8, UPC-A, UPC-E and Codabar.

The other languages

• ESC/POS: native text with the printer's code pages and fonts, native barcodes where the profile marks them equal, raster graphics, cut commands and status.
• Fingerprint: complete label programs with native text, lines, boxes, barcodes and graphics, RFID encoding and status.
• Direct Protocol: complete label programs with native text, lines, boxes, barcodes and graphics, RFID encoding and status.
• PCL: native text where the profile allows it, and raster pages otherwise, with page, copy and orientation control.

Settings that only one language has travel in a per-language options list. You set these in the print request, or as defaults in the template. An option that the target language does not offer is rejected with a message that names it.

Printer-resident fonts

You can ask for text to print in a font that lives in the printer. The printer prints it with its own font. The preview cannot show that font, so it uses a substitute and marks the element as approximate.

BarcoderX is a product of P4 Software.