For the first time I've been given this Thermal printer (M325A) to use, at this stage I have ZERO idea of how to code my desktop application to print "ANYTHING". But my present requirement will be to print just 4 lines of information:-
Pre-mentioned Static Banner (Big text),
User supplied numeric value (Non-Decimals),
Serial Number (Progressive),
Current Date & Time.
Kindly help me start.
While there are printing libraries out there, you can as well directly connect to the printer, over serial, USB, or, ethernet, and send it the commands to print. ESC/POS capable printers interpret escape sequences, which are very well documented. You must, however, get to know how you can send binary data (i.e. 8-bit bytes) directly to the printer.
In my project we need to use a virtual printer and then catch the file (most of the times its bitmap) and extract data from it. and transform it into xml like so .
<document name="file://C:\DOCUME~1\ilanit\LOCALS~1\Temp\p0129600584.htm">
<lineXY x="0" y="0" height="1656" width="2275" />
Is it something like Redmon you are looking for (used in conjunction with output to file and the launch an application)? If so you can use it or there are others out there too. Redmon is a little dated and depending on the OS you might have issues. If you can, add more detail and specifics to your question as it's a bit confusing.
UPDATE (based on comments): If the source is PDF or some other document (ie: Word) that has actual text and not just graphics (scan/image) type data you could use a Postscript driver (type 1 might work best) and then extract the text after you capture the print file. If you are not going to use the print file for actual output and just need the data, you can always try the Generic Text driver in Windows as it will ignore graphcis and just put the text in the output file. As long as the output is consistent and a little Regex should be able to pull out what you need.
If the data is graphical in nature such as a scanned image that you are printing, you will need to capture the print job, turn it into a graphic image (as it will be a print file with PCL or Postscript etc.) and then run it through an OCR engine to pull out what you need.
I have to send custom Font Files to a Zebra MZ 220 Printer via C# and the Zebra .Net SDK. That SDK provides a SendFile() Method and it works with template Files percectly but whenever I send a Font File the printer starts printing out the File while receiving it.
The Zebra Software Label Vista has a Menu option Send Font but I have to do ist programmatically.
Does anyone know how to send Font Files to the Printer?
Thank you very much
twickl
You will need to wrap the file in a special download command in order for the printer to store the file.
The command is detailed in the ZPL Guide under "CISDFCRC16".
Basic format for the command -
! CISDFCRC16
<crc> // 4 digit hex CRC. Enter 0000 to turn off CRC check.
<filename> // file name with extension. 8.3 filenames only.
<size> // eight digit hex file size in bytes.
<checksum> // four digit hex checksum. Enter 0000 to turn off checksum validation.
<data> // Binary data to store
This will allow you to store a file on the printer's file system.
Note: The printer will not understand a typical .ttf file. You will need to convert the font to a .CPF file using Label Vista, and then send it down using this command.
I've worked with LP 2824 to automatically print labels with EPL and used the RawPrinterHelper class from Microsoft, with the bug fix from here. The class has a SendFileToPrinter method which might be worth a try (I haven't used it, so I don't know if it works for fonts)
I would like to add to James's answer. He is indeed correct the '! CISDFCRC16' call does work.
I initially was having a lot of trouble getting it to work however because I implementing my own CRC and Checksum logic.
When uploading the file to the printer I was always getting a 'Checksum failed' message come out of the printer. Even after implementing the CRC/Checksum logic given to us in the CPCL programming manual.
The only way I managed to get this to work was by using Zebra's CpclCrcHeader class to calculate the CRC using the CpclCrcHeader.getCRC16ForCertificateFilesOnly(byteArray).toUpperCase() and the Checksum using the CpclCrcHeader.getWCheckSum(byteArray).toUpperCase()
Hope that helps anyone else wanting to manage all the files on their Zebra printers.
I have a situation where the only way to generate a certain datafile is to print it manually to FILE: under Windows and save it in a file for further processing.
I would really like to have a small stand-alone program which embeds this binary printer driver so I can run it from a batch file and have it generate that binary file for me, as we can then fully automate the "save file in Visio, 'print' it and upload it to the final destination and trigger a remote test".
Is this possible with a suitable Windows SDK? I am a Java programmer, so I do not know Visual Studio and the possibilities with MSDN - yet! - but I'd appreciate pointers.
EDIT: I have the installation files for that printer driver, both 32 and 64 bit. Older versions may include a 16 bit driver.
EDIT: The "print to FILE:" functionality is just what was recommended by the documentation. I have played a little bit with using the LPR-protocol to see what it can do. I'd still prefer the "invoke small binary" approach.
The general problem which you formulate is difficult to solve. Mostly a printer driver consists from some well known components like Print Monitor, Print Processor etc. which are well documented in Windows Driver Kit http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff560885%28v=VS.85%29.aspx. Some years ago I wrote a Print Monitor. It worked many years at a customer. So I know exactly what I writing about. A Print Monitor is nothing more as a DLL with well documented functions. The same is about most other printer components. Those DLLs will be loaded and called from Spooler. If you have a modern printer driver it has no components which run in kernel mode. So one can load most of DLLs from which consist every printer driver and call corresponding function.
You are interesting for using one concert printer driver. So the first what one should do is to examine how this driver is implemented. If you find out which component do the job which you need, you will be probably able to load this DLL in your process and produce output which you need. It is possible that you post an URL where I could download this driver?
UPDATED: I though a little more about your requirements. It seems to me you can goes with the way suggested by developer of the printer driver. If the driver can print to a local port FILE, then it can print in any printer port. So you can give src of a Port Monitor Server driver from C:\WinDDK\7600.16385.1\src\print\monitors\localmon (see also http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff556478%28v=VS.85%29.aspx, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff549405%28v=VS.85%29.aspx and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff563806%28v=VS.85%29.aspx). (I is a windows 32/64 DLL, not a real driver) and makes small modification. Instead of saving results to a file you can dispatch the results to your application. It will be work with 100% without any tricks. If you will have some problem to understand localmon I can give you some tips. It is really not complex. The main changes which you have to do is to modify LcmStartDocPort LcmWritePort LcmReadPort LcmEndDocPort functions from localmon.c. Some easy thing which is distinguish Port DLL from a typical DLL, that instead of exporting all DLL's functions it export only one InitializePrintMonitor2 with pointers to all other functions.
UPDATED 2: One more tip for usage of "Local Port" monitor. If goes in printer configuration, then choose "Add Port...", select "Local Port" and click "New Port..." you can type any file name like "C:\temp\my.bin". Then all what you print through a printer will be printed in this file without any user iteration. The name can be any win32 file name (UNC names or Named pipes are also allowed). With this way you can realize some scenarios without any programming with DDK.
UPDATED 3: I looked at the printer driver from different sides and looked one more time in the API in DDK. Now I want recommend you to choose the easiest way, and the way which will be full supported from the driver manufacturer. I suggest following:
You install a printer with the driver which you need and choose as the output port a Local Port with a fixed file name (see Update 2). I named here the destination filename as C:\TEMP\Output.afp. So you receive exactly the same situation like recommend you driver manufacturer. Fixed file name is absolutely the same as FILE: port. So if you print to the printer you receive in Output.afp file in the C:\TEMP directory. To be sure the end of writing you can use ReadDirectoryChangesW or FindNextChangeNotification / FindFirstChangeNotification functions with dwNotifyFilter equal to FILE_NOTIFY_CHANGE_LAST_WRITE. Then you receive notification after last write-time of the file. It means after the end of writing and after FileClose and after the cache is sufficiently flushed. So the file Output.afp is not locked and you can really safe read the results.
For printing of simple documents you can use WritePrinter function (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd162959%28VS.85%29.aspx and remark in the documentation http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd145226%28VS.85%29.aspx). Writing of complex files with bitmaps, color and different fonts you have to use typical GDI API like one this in Windows (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd162865%28v=VS.85%29.aspx).
This solution looks not very spectacular like writing a printer driver component or a simulation of spooler environment for printer driver, but it will work, will safe work and will be full supported from the driver manufacturer.
(It's been 10 years since I did anything like this, but I don't think the overall concepts have changed all that much:)
What you want to do is implement a custom print processor. A print processor is the piece of code that takes the output that the printer driver generates and transports it to the output device. Print processors are implemented as regular user-mode DLLs. You should be able to find everything you need, including samples, in the Windows DDK.
A while ago we made a commercial application which captured print streams from any windows application and converted the result to XML and tiff images
We did make a prototype with the DDK, but ended up buying a SDK for the print capturing
The SDK was from BlackIce. Although it wasn´t a free SDK, the distribution of the runtimes were royalty free.
Implementation was done with Visual C (unmanaged) and VB6.
The printer driver had to be installed on the server/PC that drove the printing process.
I remember that the tricky part was to control the printer settings in runtime (keep the tiffs compressed, output directory for the files, paper size:A4 or Letter and other settings that were defined in the DEVMODE print control structure).
UPDATE: (Your comment to #Oleg about MO:DCA P triggered my memory. Although it is not about a printer driver...)
For our commercial product, we also had to make a customization to convert MO:DCA (AFP) documents to tiffs and XML.
This SDK had to be able to extract both images and ascii text to enable later conversions
Conversion where then made in batch from AFP documents in one folder to XML and tiffs.
We chose to convert the AFP file after it had been printed (not during print).
The SDK is SnowBound RasterMaster and is available in different flavours (we used the Windows API with ActiveX, and I see now that it is available for Java)
So if your requirement is to convert an AFP document to someting else (extract images and extract ascii text) you could try out the software from SnowBound. Make sure you also get the Optional Feature to be able to extract ASCII text from the MO DCA documents.
This software SDK is more expensive, but it did the job.
They offer a trial version here.
At the moment i have one missing link in your explanation, so let me rephrase what i understood:
You have a special printer driver on your windows system, that is configured to print into a file.
You like to have a simple batch program that can give something to this printer driver to output a binary file.
You have a toolchain where this file can be further processed.
Now my missing part is, what do you want to give to your little batch script, so that it produces your binary file? Do you have a Visio file which should be automatically printed through this driver?
If yes, you should take a look into this little batch script. It is able to take any file with a registered file extension and send it to the default printer with its default settings. By using these settings you are able to change the printer settings within your windows system from a batch file to make your special driver the default one and putting the output into a file.
So if i understood you correctly i didn't had the complete solution but i think a good starting point to accomplish your task.
Update
Ok, after reading your comment, i fully understood what you like to achieve. To get this to work you have to follow Per Larsens advice to write your own driver with the windows ddk (or to be more precise the Windows Driver Kit [WDK]) and encapsulate the already existing driver.
So in short and simple: Your driver signs up as new printer driver. When it is called it gets all the raw bytes from the application. Passes it into the driver that can generate your datafile. Get the output from that driver back and do with it whatever you like.
Some samples to get started can also be found in MSDN as overview or more precisely here.
But just to say it right beforehand: This is not an easy or simple task and the effort is quite high. Maybe trying to manipulate the driver settings of your special driver through the already given batches or a simple application (written with AutoIt) can also solve your problem, by just interacting (automatically) with the settings of the driver.
I can live with "When a user prints any file to this particular Windows printer, then automatically capture the bytes that would have been sent to the printer".
In that case, you want something like RedMon, which redirects the bytes which would have gone to the printer into the input for another program.
Just to reiterate, probably the simplest capture method is using a new Local Port configured as a filename. You can to monitor the output file as previously discussed to catch the output.
Otherwise, you want to write your own port monitor - not a printer driver or a print processor. All a port monitor does is receive the already rendered data from the printer driver, and sends it to the output device. So writing your own port monitor will allow you to go in and change the output port associated with the existing printer driver to be your own output port, and your port monitor can simply write the data to a file, probably one with a unique filename in a dedicated directory.
Printer drivers are far too complicated for what you want to do, and while a print processor could also capture the output data, you'd probably get entangled in some scantily documented system issues you won't want to have to figure out.
The LocalMon sample in the Windows Driver Kit is THE starting point for writing a port monitor. However, it manages all the system local ports and is quite a bit more complex than you need. In fact, much of it is just likely to confuse you. I'd recommend you start with LocalMon, and compare it to the Redmon source, which is much simpler because it manages a dedicated port. Beware that the Redmon source was taken from localmon long ago and appears to have a few bugs, so use Redmon as a reference and pare back the LocalMon code to what's needed to just write the output to a file.
You don't embed drivers in executables- drivers are for the operating system to communicate with the hardware.
You print via the Operating system.
Your 'batch' needs to select the correct printer, and print...
I get the queue from my targeted printer and goes through the list of jobs on it. When a job is not IsSpooling, I try to read the JobStream to see the print job.
So far JobStream has always been null. My printed stuff comes from on DOS application and should be pure text. I've Paused the printer to safe the rain forest, but I should still be able to get the spooled data, right?
Am I missing something, or is PrintSystemJobInfo.JobStream broken?
This value is almost always going to be null. Refer to this forum post: http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=549634
If you want the actual binary JobStream your best bet is to read the spool file (.SPL) out of the "C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS" directory. You can pause the job before its printed, or set the "keep print jobs" setting as mentioned in the linked forum post. Be forewarned though, this data comes in a gamut of formats all depending on the driver creating the spool file and the application initiating the print. Extracting data out of this stream is no trivial task as it will change from printer driver to printer driver. If you are working with 1 single known printer, then you may have success.