InterForm400 supports these kinds of label printers:
Fully ZPLII (Zebra Printer Language) compatible printers.
Fully IDP (Intermec Direct Protocol) compatible printers.
IPL (Intermec Printer Language) compatible printers - with several limitations. The use of IPL is not recommended, and ZPL or IDP should be used instead whenever possible.
The normal way to generate print output is via a merge,
Overlays/forms for label printers must be created in a file set of type 2=Label printer.
For the merge you should specify one of the specific label printer types for either ZPLII, IDP or IPL.
ZPL relevant configuration
In order to be able to print on ZPLII compatible printers you need to ensure, that the command prefixes in the InterForm400 configuration fits the printers.
The firmware setting in the InterForm400 should also fit your printers. Unless you have very old printers (+15 years) you should only use the new firmware setting.
If you have configured InterForm400 to support both old and new firmwares, then you should add the output queues of the old printers (where you are placing the merged spooled files) via options:
80. Administering InterForm400
8. Work with printer control options
5. Output queues with old Zebra firmware
(The last option is only visible, if you have enabled both old and new firmware in the configuration).
You can even setup preview via a ZPLII preview printer, if you have a vacant ZPLII compatible printer available.
A way to increase the printing speed on Zebra ZPLII compatible printers is to load images and fonts in the zebra flash memory. The downside is, that you need manually to ensure, that fonts and images in the printers are up to date.
For ZPLII compatible printers, there are specific Zebra settings on the overlay header to set the printing speed and relative darkness of the label.
For the merge there are also specific ZPLII relevant settings.
Workaround for error: Paper out
The error: Paper out on a Zebra printer is normally related to a bad sensor, a maximum label length, that is set too small on the printer or a needed calibration of the printer. We have however seen an issue on ZTC ZD230 printers, that either stopped with the error message 'Paper out' or printed one or more empty labels in the middle of a print out - even when the prerequisites above was met.
The problem is related to the fact, that the non-unicode merge in InterForm400 currently ends the ZPL print data stream with the ^JUR command. This is a command to make the printer recall the previously saved configuration (in case InterForm400 has temporarily changed any settings). Due to unknown reasons this may cause the issue above on ZTC ZD230 Zebra printers.
There are two solutions to this (with the current version of InterForm400 - which is version 2022M03):
1) Setup the merge in InterForm400 to be a unicode merge. This section may help you. The reason why this can be used as a solution/workaround is, that the ^JUR command is not specified for the ZPL unicode output.
2) Install the PTF 5825, if you are running a version in the interval 2022M01-2022M03.
IDP relevant configuration
Vacant IDP compatible printers (that are not used for production printing) can also be used for previewing the merged result. This is setup in the InterForm400 configuration.
IPL relevant configuration
The IPL configuration of InterForm400 is included in the normal InterForm400 configuration.
