Zebra Printer - Cut on last page - printing

Question

I've a Zebra ZT610 and I want to print a label, in pdf format, containing multiple pages and then have it cut on the last page. I've tried using the delayed cut mode and sending the ~JK command but I'm using a self written java application to do the invocation of printing. I've also tried to add the string "${^XB}$" into the PDF document before each page break, except the last, and used the pass-through setting in the driver to inhibit the cut command but that seems to not work either as the java print job is rendering such text as an image.
I've tried the official Zebra driver as well as using the NiceLabel zebra driver too in the hope that they may have more "Custom Commands" options in the settings but nothing has yet come to light.

Answer 1

After we had the same issues for several weeks and neither the vendor nor google nor Zebra's own support came up with a FULL working solution, we've worked out the following EASY 5 step solution for this (apparently pretty common) Zebra Cutter issue/problem:
Step 1:
Set Cutter-Mode to Tear-Off in the settings.
This will disable the auto-cutting after every single page.
Step 2: Go to Customer-Commands in the settings dialog (Allows ZPL coding).
Step 3: Set the first drop-down to "DOCUMENT".
Step 4: Set the Start-Section to "TEXT" and paste in
^XA^MMD^XZ^XA^JUS^XZ
MMD enables PAUSE-Mode. The JK command is only available in Pause-Mode and many Zebra printers do not support the much easier command CN (Cut-Now).
JUS saves the setting to the printer.
Step 5: Set the End-Section to "ANALYZED TEXT" and paste in
˜JK˜PS
JK sets the cut command to the end of the document, PS disables the pause mode (and thus starts printing immediately). When everything looks as described above, hit "APPLY" and your Zebra printer will automatically cut after the end of each document you send to it. You just send your PDF using sumatra or whatever you prefer. The cutter handling is now automatically done by the printer settings.
Alternatively, if you want to do this programmaticaly, use the START and END codes at the corresponding positions in your ZPL code instead. Note that ˜CMDs cannot be send in combination with ^CMDs, thats why there's no XA...XZ block to reset any settings (which is not necessary in this scenario as it only affects the print session and PS turns the pause mode back to OFF).

Answer 2

I had similar concern but as the print server was CUPS, I wasn't able to use Windows drivers and utilities (settings dialog). So basically, I did the following:
On the printer, set Cutter mode. This will cut after each printed label.
In my Java code, thanks to Apache PDFBox lib, open the PDF and for each page, render it as a monochrome BufferedImage, get bytes array from it, and get its hex representation.
Write a few ZPL commands to download hex as graphic data, and add the ^XB command before the ^XZ one, in order to prevent a cut here, except for the last page, so that there is a cut only at the end of the document.
Send the generated ZPL code to the printer. In my case, I send it as a raw document through IPP, using application/vnd.cups-raw as mime-type, thanks to the great lib ipp-client-kotlin, but it is also possible to use Java native printing API with bytes.
Below in a snippet of Java code, for demo purpose:
public void printPdfStream(InputStream pdfStream) throws IOException {
try (PDDocument pdDocument = PDDocument.load(pdfStream)) {
PDFRenderer pdfRenderer = new PDFRenderer(pdDocument);
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
for (int pageIndex = 0; pageIndex < pdDocument.getNumberOfPages(); pageIndex++) {
boolean isLastPage = pageIndex == pdDocument.getNumberOfPages() - 1;
BufferedImage bufferedImage = pdfRenderer.renderImageWithDPI(pageIndex, 300, ImageType.BINARY);
byte[] data = ((DataBufferByte) bufferedImage.getData().getDataBuffer()).getData();
int length = data.length;
// Invert bytes
for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {
data[i] ^= 0xFF;
}
builder.append("~DGR:label,").append(length).append(",").append(length / bufferedImage.getHeight())
.append(",").append(Hex.getString(data));
builder.append("^XA");
builder.append("^FO0,0");
builder.append("^XGR:label,1,1");
builder.append("^FS");
if (!isLastPage) {
builder.append("^XB");
}
builder.append("^XZ");
}
IppPrinter ippPrinter = new IppPrinter("ipp://printserver/printers/myprinter");
ippPrinter.printJob(new ByteArrayInputStream(builder.toString().getBytes()),
documentFormat("application/vnd.cups-raw"));
}
}
Important: hex data can (and should) be compressed, as mentioned in ZPL Programming Guide, section Alternative Data Compression Scheme for ~DG and ~DB Commands. Depending on the PDF content, it may drastically reduce the data size (by a factor 10 in my case!).
Note that Zebra's support provides a few more alternatives in order to controller the cutter, but this one worked immediately.

Answer 3

Zebra Automatic Cut - Found another solution.
Create a file with the name: Delayed Cut Settings.txt
Insert the following code: ^XA^MMC,N^XZ
Send it to the printer
After you do the 3 steps above, all the documents you send to the printer will be cut automatically.
(To disable that function send again the 'Delayed Cut Setting.txt' with the following code:^XA^MMD^XZ )
The first document you send to the printer, you need to ADD (just once) the command ^MMC,N before the ^XZ
My EXAMPLE TXT:
^XA
^FX Top section with logo, name and address.
^CF0,60
^FO50,50^GB100,100,100^FS
^FO75,75^FR^GB100,100,100^FS
^FO93,93^GB40,40,40^FS
^FO220,50^FDIntershipping, Inc.^FS
^CF0,30
^FO220,115^FD1000 Shipping Lane^FS
^FO220,155^FDShelbyville TN 38102^FS
^FO220,195^FDUnited States (USA)^FS
^FO50,250^GB700,3,3^FS
^FX Second section with recipient address and permit information.
^CFA,30
^FO50,300^FDJohn Doe^FS
^FO50,340^FD100 Main Street^FS
^FO50,380^FDSpringfield TN 39021^FS
^FO50,420^FDUnited States (USA)^FS
^CFA,15
^FO600,300^GB150,150,3^FS
^FO638,340^FDPermit^FS
^FO638,390^FD123456^FS
^FO50,500^GB700,3,3^FS
^FX Third section with bar code.
^BY5,2,270
^FO100,550^BC^FD12345678^FS
^FX Fourth section (the two boxes on the bottom).
^FO50,900^GB700,250,3^FS
^FO400,900^GB3,250,3^FS
^CF0,40
^FO100,960^FDCtr. X34B-1^FS
^FO100,1010^FDREF1 F00B47^FS
^FO100,1060^FDREF2 BL4H8^FS
^CF0,190
^FO470,955^FDCA^FS
^MMC,N
^XZ