Zebra Printer Setup Problems

[Susie Sterkowicz]

Hi
does anyone know how to setup a Zebra Thermal printer to Hp-UX 11.i box?
I am having trouble getting anything to print
Thanks Susie

[Bill Hassell]

Well, there many, many connection options so start with:

1. Is the printer on a serial or parallel connection (ie, RS-232 versus Centronics)? Then you'll need to identify the device file. Use ioscan -knf to see all the devices and device files. Use SAM to add the printer as a local printer and select the 'dumb' model script.

2. Is the printer on a remote system? If so, setup the printer in SAM as a remote printer (and always specify BSD printer). You may need to prefilter ASCII files with ux2dos to handle stair-stepped output. There's no printer script to choose since the job is sent to a remote system for printing.

3. Is the printer connected to an HP JetDirect external interface box? If so, use SAM to setup the printer as a 'networked' printer. SAM will use the JetDirect software (HP Printer Installer) to add the printer. Use the 'dumb' model script.

Now HP-UX only provides plain ASCII as a printer language, so if the printer is Postscript only, you can sort-of get it going by using the 'postscript' model script (local or networked only) and simple ASCII files can be formatted into Postscript output.

[David Uraneck]

WE have a lot of Zebra bar code label printers at our site, both network attached and hosted by jetdirect print server boxes. Hopefully, you have installed the HPNP jetdirect SD distribution from HP--this make things easy.

The 2 ways we have set up print queues on HPUX 11.x are the following:

1) use SAM for Remote printer installation. Provide a print queue name, the host/IP name of the remote host, then use "zebra1" for the internal print port on the Zebra. This works at least for many of the Zebra models we have.

2) use SAM for Network print queue installation. provide the host/IP info or the network attached interface of the Zebra, then select the "dumbplot_printer" model for your interface.

It is also important that things are properly configured on the Zebra interface. You will need to study your Zebra manual for these settings. We have had problems getting things to work only to find the printer settings were not configured correctly. I cannot remember which were the most problematic, but my Zebra guy knows.

ZPL is a funny language, so it helps to have the handy ZPL test page to use to test your setup. Getting the right manual is also important for LP and LPR print queue info; however, the settings above should be enough to get you started.

[Susie Sterkowicz]

Thanks guys for your input
I have the printer setup as a networked printer, yes to bsd system, host name is ip and type ascii. It is not serial or parallel port it is attached to a Lexmark print server. I will try the dumb setup and see what happens
thanks much, susie

[Charles Akonnor]

Zebra should be setup as remote printer with /dev/null as the print device
#/usr/sbin/lpadmin -p${ptr_que_name} -v/dev/null -mrmodel -ocmrcmodel \
-osmrsmodel -orm${ptr_ip} -orp${rem_que}

[Susie Sterkowicz]

Hi again
I setup as remote, using ip as printer name, and dumbplot and also tried as just dumb. Neither of these worked.
If I didn't tell you before this is a Barcode printer
In dump mode on the printer it will print out my text test file using lp -dprintername filename. Nothing comes from the application.
Any more ideas? Thanks for ALL of your Help!
Susie

[Robert Salter]

Susie

Like David pointed out in a previous post, ZPL is a very particular language. We too have a lot of Zebra printers and we keep a couple of test files in ZPL format to test with. Sounds like getting to the printer isn't the problem, because you can print a text file to it. If it's not coming from the app, maybe the problem is there. What application are you running?

[Susie Sterkowicz]

We are running Epic Software.
Where would I name the Zebra1 in the print server?

One other thing. Do these printers have be to setup with a JetDirect Print Server?

We have ours setup with a Lexmark

Thanks Susie

[Susie Sterkowicz]

Hi Again
I just found out that this Zebra Printer is using Epl2 Language. The model is TLP-2844

We have another Zebra Printer, that one is using ZPL, but we can't get that one to do anything either.

Do you have a copy of the ZPL test file you sent to your printer you could email me?
My email is ssterkowicz@themonroeclinic.org

Thanks so much, Susie

[Michael Elleby III_1]

Susie-

I am in a similar situation with over two dozen of these barcode printers connected to JetDirect print servers, and they all work perfectly.

Mike-