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I'm working on a webproject that involves sending EPL2 printing codes to a Zebra label printer. It does this by writing a file to the local computer with the EPL2-codes and calling an ActiveX-component that executes a command to send the EPL2-code to the printer port. I've got all of it working except one thing: I need to send the degree character ° to the printer to be printed on the label. When I just send it to the printer with that in the printing codes it prints a zero with a diagonal strike through it instead of what I expect. The file written to the computer definitely contains the right character so that can be ruled out.

I've consulted the programming manual (http://www.geksagon.ru/i/2/EPL2_Manual.pdf) and found some information: turns out I'm printing symbol 237 instead of 248 in the standard character set but there is no hint as to how it can be fixed. Setting different encodings prints other symbols but there is no way to determine how I can print the °.

Does anyone know how I can print that character or - alternatively - print characters by their character code?

Edit: The following image shows the default character map as printed in the manual, much like an HTML code table I would expect there to be a way to print the degree sign by passing the character code. (In an HTML file ° or ° would show as °, I'm looking for a way to do the same thing with EPL2.)

EPL2 Default Character Map

JDT
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4 Answers4

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I have Found that using windows 7 and even typing the CHars to be printed into the web interface for the ZPL printers there are problems. the thing that worked for me was to enter alt + 0248 which displays as ø will give me the alt + 248 symbol °

levi Clouser
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Any character can be printed by using ^CI command. Use ^CI27 to print any character shown in above list. How to do ?

Use below coding:
^XA~TA000~JSN^LT0^MMT^MNW^MTT^PON^PMN^LH20,00^JMA^PRC,C,C^MD12^JUS^LRN
^CI27^XZ
^XA^LL1000^PW1500
^FO30,30^A0N,30,30^FD Here to print Ø : -OPTICVAL^FS
^FO30,80^A0N,30,30^FD Registered ® ^FS
^FO30,130^A0N,30,30^FD Copy Right © ^FS
^FO30,180^A0N,30,30^FD Degree ° ^FS
^PQ1,0,1,N^XZ

Any character can be taken from MS Office or any other software and paste into above code, just I have entered into the above script, you will able to print anything by Zebra Printer.

Basanta Das
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You use the following in ZPL Zebra printers: \u0022 for " _5e for ^ hat or caret circumflex accent
_26 for & ampersand \u00b0 for ° &degree sign °C °F etc

depends on the font you are using though

Adam Foster
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Try setting your code page with I8,A,001 and using the character code 176. 176 is the degree symbol in both the Windows 1252 code page and Unicode, so hopefully your ActiveX control will do the right thing with it.

Mark Ransom
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  • I've edited my question to reflect that it is not a problem to write ° to the EPL-file. I need to find a way to use character codes in EPL. – JDT Oct 12 '11 at 07:09
  • @JDT, You've already said you're using some unspecified ActiveX control to send the file to the printer; presumably you can't change the control. How do you expect to change the output if you don't change what you're writing to the file? It doesn't matter if it looks right or not, only that it prints right. – Mark Ransom Oct 12 '11 at 13:40
  • What I'm writing to the file is correct, turns out the file just doesn't have the right encoding. I can't control the encoding it is written in because that's done by the ActiveX but if I test with an ANSI-encoded file the ° prints out fine. I'm looking for a way to pass the ° as a character code in EPL, the printer font has a character encoding table so I assumed that there would be a way to just pass character codes regardless of file encoding... – JDT Oct 13 '11 at 07:00
  • @JDT, I would love to be able to figure out what character would print as ° on your Zebra but you're not giving me enough information. It is clear at this point that the character that prints a ° won't look like that on screen. – Mark Ransom Oct 13 '11 at 13:27
  • Edited my question some more but at this point seems like I'm going to have to print every single character on my keyboard and hope that it yields the right result at some point... – JDT Oct 14 '11 at 07:15
  • @JDT, have you actually tried the suggestion I gave? I think I'm done. – Mark Ransom Oct 14 '11 at 13:19