topic Re: Barcodes in Application Development and Automation Discussions

Barcodes

Former Member — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 16:56:40 GMT

They are literally killing me!

Hello,

We've just bought the new Zebra portable printer - RW 420. It's ZPL compatible but, unfortunately, it doesn't print jack!

I've tried everything: from creating the label from BAR-ONE and then uploading it into a SAPscript (NADA!) - installing a third-party middleware for printing barcode (NADA!) - cursing the ZEBRA people (NADA! but it gave my some sort of relief) - asked my boss to fire me (NADA! yet).

Bottom line: do you guys have any tip/hint? I'm open to suggestions. Plus: do you guys know if there is any software other than BAR-ONE to create labels?

Thank you,

Re: Barcodes

Former Member — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 17:40:24 GMT

Francesco,

Try to send the itf file that you generated from the barone software to the zebra printer directly from the OS level and see if the printer prints.

If it does not then there is either a problem with the printer of with the ZPL code and not with the SAP interface or sapscript.

Try this and let me know.

Pravin

Re: Barcodes

juan_suros — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 18:08:07 GMT

Not literally, I hope!

Try the simplest print test first, to see if the problem is with the printer or the SAP printing setup.

Send a simple ZPL label description to the label printer:

^XA
^LH30,30
^FO20,10^AD^FDHello World!^FS
^FO20,60^B3^FDHello World^FS
^XZ

I've never worked with a RW 420 before, but the online specs say it should have ethernet & RS-232 connectors, so you have a couple of options:

Print a label from ABAP by sending each line as a WRITE statement through an SAP print queue with device type ASCIIPRI.

Print printing a test file with these lines through a windows print queue to the RW 420 printer.

You can also plug the printer into your PC's COM port and direct a text file with these lines to the COM port from the command line using MODE and TYPE commands. That should work.

This will tell you if the printer is working. Once you've proved this you can work backward to making it print something useful. My group didn't like the Bar-One learning curve and ended up using the ABAP WRITE approach for label graphics and layout. Works perfectly.

Good luck.

Re: Barcodes

RichHeilman — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 18:22:06 GMT

We hand wrote(no 3rd party software) the ZPLII code directly in the main window of the sapscript form. Works great! Could there be a problem with the device type setup in SPAD?

Regards,

Rich Heilman