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Consider the below ZPL code.

^XA
^BY2,2,80
^FO50,50^BCR^FD3079+Plate-SS-14 # 44^FS
^XZ

Using the online viewer at http://labelary.com/viewer.html shows you vertically rotated bar code with label beneath and everything appears to be fine.

However, when I print the label the bar code is not scan-able because the lines of the bar code are too thick (see below images). Removing the rotate flag from ^BCR and making it ^BC fixes the issue and the lines are perfectly normal and scan-able. I have tried numerous different methods to rotate the code with no success and can't wrap my head around as to why the lines become thicker when rotating a bar code.

Does anyone have any insight as to why this happens?

Broken Rotated Barcode Image

Working (not rotated) Barcode Image

Adi
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  • A photograph of the barcode you are attempting to scan always makes diagnosis much easier. – Brian Anderson Nov 28 '19 at 12:19
  • @BrianAnderson I've added images above for more context. Notice how in the first link the bar code is significantly thicker when printed compared to it's (not rotated) counterpart. – Adi Nov 28 '19 at 15:02
  • Thank you for the images. Your situation makes sense to me now. This artifact can appear as a result of low resolution print heads, and high moisture in the substrate. Barcode lines deposited perpendicular to the direction of the print head while traveling across the paper may smear. The print head itself may have a higher horizontal resolution than its vertical one. Have you tried other materials? Paper, different, maybe drier label stock? – Brian Anderson Nov 28 '19 at 15:25
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    We use a thermal printer for the labels shown in the images so I don't think we have any issues with high moisture in the substrate. However, I think you're onto something regarding the direction the print head travels. I may have to investigate printer settings to see if it's possible to fix. It seems to be a hardware issue more so than a ZPL one. – Adi Nov 28 '19 at 15:39
  • If it's thermal, then you definitely want to speed the print head up or lower the temperature if there is setting for that. – Brian Anderson Nov 28 '19 at 18:02
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    It was actually a case of slowing the speed down that ended up resolving the issue. I'd be more than happy to accept your answer if you edit it! – Adi Nov 28 '19 at 19:26
  • That's okay, since you figured it out, you should post your answer, including how you slowed the print head down for your printer. I'm just happy to help. – Brian Anderson Nov 29 '19 at 12:53

3 Answers3

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In my case, the solution was the printing speed being too fast. Another potential solution would be to turn down the darkness or temperature of the printer itself if it's an option in the settings.

Simply opening my respective zebra printer's printing preferences showed me a Print Speed setting which was set to 12.7 cm/s. Reducing it down to 10.1 cm/s fixed the problem.

Adi
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1

Adjust the Darkness of the printing and/or the speed of the printing. that should solve your problem.

EdHayes3
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I think it is a problem with your use of the PNG file that the site generates. The PNG file generated includes enough whitespace in the front (top) quiet zone of the symbol to scan, but if you use the Windows system viewer to print the barcode and print in full size, it slices off the top-most bars.

Try embedding the PNG file into a document, setting the photo size to less than full page, or use the PDF file.

Brian Anderson
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    We don't use the PNG file generated from the labelary ZPL viewer, we have an actual printer that we feed the encoded ZPL to. The viewer is just a sandbox to see visuals as we're making changes. – Adi Nov 28 '19 at 15:06