¡Hi everyone!
I need to understand how to print labels with a Zebra GK420t printer. The only software I have is "ZebraDesigner for XML" and I have been able to design and print single labels with statict text, but what I need is to print a series of labels that you can use in laboratory work in a daily basis, e.g labels of samples with different ID from a data base. What I've done so far is to use data in MS Excel to create labels using MS Word 2010, which works well, but now I need to add QR codes to those labels.
To my understanding, I should be able to do that by using variables in ZebraDesigner, but I have no idea how to connect my data with the labels. I think there's something about programming in ZPL, but I can't figure out how, and most ZPL manuals have not been useful to me.
I'm sorry if these is a very basic problem, but I have not previous experience with label printers and I have nobody to ask (the printer was buyed in 2015 and nobody have figure out how to make it work properly).
Thank you in advance for any kind of help
PS: Sorry for any wrinting mistake; English is not my native language.
Basic questions about Zebra printers |
1 Replies
Hi Felipe,
The first thing you want to do is create a stored format. This is simple from ZebraDesigner for XML, Just click Export to file in the file menu. It will give you essentially 2 files. One is the ZPL. It has essentially the page description, like HTML. You send this to the printer and it will be stored as a template for printing. The other part is an XML template with some base data you specified. This is what you use to actually print. It tells the printer to recall the format, and provides attributes for the variable data you want specified. You can use it as a template for how to format your data to send to the printer. In order to actually send these files to the printer, you have several options. You can open the driver and send it directly. Not useful for integrating into an application though. For that, we tend to recommend using the Link-OS SDK. There are more options, but this is likely the easiest.
I have some of this information in a webinar I did a few months ago. Also, you may have to add a little more information to your QR code to print it fully. Until you know more details, you may want to add "MA," without the quotes to the beginning of your data for the QR code.
Let me know if this makes sense or I just confused you more....
- Robin