Thermal printing to Zebra LP2844 via text commands / ZPL II

[philbish]

Figure a lot of you use the LP2844 or similar Zebra thermal label printer.

I've been using it for years with desktop shipping applications, like Endicia/Dazzle, and UPS WorldShip.

I'm trying to send Zebra's programming language commands (ZPL II) directly to the printer.

I'd have these generated from a browser, say Firefox, and then use a Firefox add-on like JSPrint to send them automatically to a window printer without having to click the print button.

I read somewhere that you can setup a generic text printer driver and send it text commands. But I'm not sure if it would work through text on a browser page.

Anyone have experience doing this?

(Trying to move away from the desktop shipping applications, and get the labels generated through Endicia's Label Server API, as well as UPS's Label API.)

[particleman]

I've done both label server and UPS label API. We're using pdf currently for label server then having users hit the print button. For ups though we are using the epl format for the eltron 2844.

You're on the right track but the label has to be downloaded server side the served to the client browser. The approach I took for epl was write a very small app in .net that is associated with the .epl extension. When the browser servers this extension it fires my little app and all it does is read in the file and send it over to the label printer. It requires having the app installed on workstations but it is very reliable and works in one click.

I think you will find that the way paypal does it is with a java applet, that would be another route you could go.