Printing Labels With Zebra Z4000 (SAP Library - BC Style and Form Maintenance)

Printing Labels With Zebra Z4000

Use

This topic tells you how to use the method described under Printing Labels to create and print labels with Zebra Z4000.

Procedure

Create the label: To design the label layout, use the design program BAR-ONE Tool for SAP R/3 label printing of the manufacturer Zebra. For more information see http://www.zebra.com.

As printer, select the printer Zebra Z4000 in BAR-ONE.

Define the R/3 form fields: In BAR-ONE define all those fields as variable fields of type SAP variable field that will later be filled with variable data from the R/3 system.

In the input field Identifier of the field attributes enter the R/3 field name to be used in SAPscript, enclosed in ampersands ("&"), for example &VBAK-KUNNR& .

Select fonts for the text fields: For variable and constant text fields you can use printer-internal fonts as well as TrueType fonts.

For Zebra label printing, SAP has defined two different device types (see 8.). The difference lies in the character set coding for special characters (for example, German umlauts):

The device type LB_ZEB supports the character set IBM 850 of the printer-internal font "CG Triumvirate Bold Condensed". Use this device type if you want to print special characters in variable text fields in this printer-internal font.
The device type LB_ZEB2 supports the character set "Latin-1" of the TrueType fonts. Use this device type if you want to print special characters in variable text fields using TrueType fonts.

Insert bitmap graphics: You can include bitmap graphics (for example, company logo as *.BMP file) into the label definition. The system passes them to the print file during the download.

Download label definition into print file: Choose File ® Create Format for SAP R/3 to convert the printer commands into an ITF file that is suited for import into SAPscript. The Download Stored Format Wizard appears and allows you to choose between two procedures:

Download the label definition into the Zebra printer (RAM or nonvolatile memory) and create a merge file for SAPscript.

Create a file for SAPscript that contains label definition plus variable data.

For performance reasons you should prefer the first method, since that print files created in R/3 to be sent to the printer have only minimal size. With the second method, even though you avoid keeping the label definition in the printer, you must pass the entire label definition to the printer for each label you print from R/3 (including graphics, fonts, and so on), which is considerably slower.

BAR-ONE in both cases creates a file with the extension ".ITF".

Upload the print file to SAPscript: Start the SAPscript standard text editor (transaction SO10). Create a new standard text. Use Text ® Upload to load the label file; choose ITF as format. Save the file.

Adapt the SAPscript form: To print the label, adapt the SAPscript form you want to use for printing. Choose Utilities ® SAPscript ® Form:

The MAIN window must be as wide as possible to avoid printer commands being split up by line feeds. If the width of the main window is less than 15 cm (6 inches), enlarge it to at least this value.
You can keep all other windows unless they overlap with the MAIN window. The Zebra printer ignores any texts you may output in these windows.
Delete all windows except MAIN. If you keep any windows, they must not contain any data you want to print (you may mark texts as comments).
The MAIN window should contain only one text element which contains the newly created label file. The name of the text element depends on the R/3 application program you use. Insert the label file into this text element by copying the entire text from SO10 into the form window.
If there are any other text elements defined in MAIN that are called from within the print program, you can leave them unchanged since the printer ignores unknown commands. However, for better readability you should mark their contents as comments.

The first page of the form should point to itself as next page, since the label file in the MAIN window may be very large, especially if it includes graphics.

Create an output device: Define the Zebra printer as Output Device in the SAP System.

The easiest way is to connect the printer to a Windows PC, install any Windows printer driver there, and start the output program SAPlpd. Then define the printer in the spool administration (transaction SPAD) using coupling type "S" or "U".

As device type select LB_ZEB or LB_ZEB2 .