ZPL fieldblock ^FB for unicode fonts

Question

I am using ZQ520, its already supports Unicode and I am loading the font as follows:

^XA ^CWZ,E:TT0003M_.FNT^FS^XZ

I can use the font to print Arabic as follows:

^FO100,50^CI28^AZN,0,25^FD ARABIC TEXT HERE ^FS

It works fine but when I use ^FB with ^FO, the Arabic letters get messed up and gets separated (In Arabic, they are connected), here an example:

^FO100,50^FB200,,,R,^CI28^AZN,0,25^FD ARABIC TEXT HERE^FS

so it seems that ^FB does not support the Unicode font. on page 187 of the manual its mention this

The ^FB command does not support complex text. For complex text support, use ^TB.

And 179

The Field Block (^FB) command cannot support the large TrueType fonts.

Is there a way around this? Because Arabic is right to left, so I am trying to make the text right aligned and multi-line as some strings are long.

Have you looked at the note at the bottom of the page in this link: https://km.zebra.com/kb/index?page=content&id=SO6820&actp=RSS Languages that have character shaping or are multi-directional may need to have the Advanced Text command parameters properly configured so glyphs are properly positioned. The Arabic text in the above example required ^PA (Advanced Text) settings to print correctly. — haakym, Mar 21 '17 at 14:26

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 28 '17 at 14:57

I managed to print out word wrapping Arabic text using ^TB using the following code. It may be useful to adapt for your own purposes.

^XA^LRN^CI28^CWZ,E:TT0003M_.FNT^FS
^FO600,10,2
^AZN,50,40
^TBN,600,100
^FH
^FD
arabic text here
^FS
^PQ1
^XZ

Useful links:

Please note that it states the ^TB command must be issued after any ^Ax (font selection) command

1 Answers1