i will try your suggestions. The main problem I am having is that the printer / driver dont seem to know when the page ends and the paper just keeps feedng out until the printer takes itself offline with an error.
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Print a receipt with FileMaker and a Zebra Printer
I am attempting to print receipts with the a Zebra LP 2844. I can't seem to control the paper length let alone get the font printing in the correct direction. It worked fine with labels while I was developing this module, but now that I have the receipt paper in use all bets seem to be off.
Anyone have experience or tips to share?
OS = 10.5.6
FM = 10
Driver = Zebra EPL2 Label Printer, 1.3
Printer = Zebra LP 2844
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Answers
Exactly the same thing I ran into with a barcode printer a couple weeks ago. I found by setting the margins manually it seemed to fix it. Hopefully that will work.
Otherwise, you might need to check the specs on the printer and see what it is wanting for a page break. Once you have that character code, you could put the character on the layout at the appropriate place, in the same color as the background.
I confirm the headache! my solution was to create a smaller layout than the label height, and rely on the printer label pitch to feed next label, which requires some setup on printer as these can generally feed paper continuously or rely on the gap in between labels to increment paper position in between pages/labels.
We ran into this a lot in previous projects and threw much trial and error, we have found that if you are to setup the layout to match the printer settings to start. Next you will want to add a script step to your printing script that does page setup and sets to the Zebra again. We've found that for some reason FM will want to jump to another printer, and mess with the layout settings to the printer. On top of this we also began using myFMButler PrinterSwitch, which allows you to set/store/load printer settings, output printer (great if your switching between the Zebra and a 8x11 printer) and more. We've had this setup in use for about 2 years now in a FMP 9 solution without issue. You shouldn't need the plugin though, but I'd recommend it. To debug I'd advise removing all the printers except the Zebra, and then adding the script step for Page and Print setups to ensure everything is a-ok before executing Print[]
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by: webwyzsystemsPosted on 2009-03-10 at 10:28:59ID: 23849213
Ugh..printing to receipt printers sucks. I find it very fragile. If you go into layout mode when the incorrect print driver is selected - seems to lose the setup.
Unfortunately, using a label based layout won't work quite correctly. (at least I could never get it to go in any type of reliable fashion). Instead, treat your label size as a custom page size for printing.
So - try this:
1. Make sure the appropriate receipt printer driver is selected.
2. Open your filemaker solution, make a new blank layout.
3. Go into layout options, select fixed page margins, adjust the right and bottom margins until the page size matches your label size.
4. Flip back to your current label layout, select your stuff & copy.
5. Flip back to the new layout & paste. Move around till pretty. :-)
6. Go into preview mode, see what you get.
7. Fiddle around a whole bunch, until preview looks good - then try printing.
8. Make a script that restores all printing options, and save it.
9. Now try using it.
If you are developing off site - you will need that printer driver installed on your machine. If you can't use the printer driver thats in use on site, things seem to fall apart.
Hope this helps.