'Java Printing with ZPL prints ZPL as text

I am trying to use a Zebra label printer using Java, and I'm having some issues:

I am trying the following code, which contains code taken from here: https://github.com/w3blogfr/zebra-zpl

    public static void printZpl(String zpl, String printerName) throws ZebraPrintException {
        try {

            PrintService psZebra = null;
            String sPrinterName = null;
            PrintService[] services = PrintServiceLookup.lookupPrintServices(null, null);

            for (int i = 0; i < services.length; i++) {
                PrintServiceAttribute attr = services[i].getAttribute(PrinterName.class);
                sPrinterName = ((PrinterName) attr).getValue();
                if (sPrinterName.toLowerCase().indexOf(printerName.toLowerCase()) >= 0) {
                    psZebra = services[i];
                    break;
                }
            }

            if (psZebra == null) {
                throw new ZebraPrintNotFoundException("Zebra printer not found : " + printerName);
            }
            DocPrintJob job = psZebra.createPrintJob();

            byte[] by = zpl.getBytes();
            DocFlavor flavor = DocFlavor.BYTE_ARRAY.AUTOSENSE;
            Doc doc = new SimpleDoc(by, flavor, null);
            job.print(doc, null);
        } catch (PrintException e) {
            throw new ZebraPrintException("Cannot print label on this printer : " + printerName, e);
        }
    }

The string I am trying to print is this one:

^XA
^MMT
^FT0,110^FH\^FDTestString^FS
^XZ

The problem is that although I am able to connect to the printer and print something, the output is printed as plain text, it's as if the printer does not recognize that a ZDL command has been given.

The printer is a Zebra ZD220, and I have connected it to my Mac as a generic label printer, and selected the Zebra ZDL as the software to use it with.

Is there something I miss?

Note that I have been able to do this using NodeJS (so I know that this is working) using node-printer, so I know that it should work, but with Java, I cannot seem to make the printer understand that I am giving ZPL commands to it, and it prints plain characters.

javaprintingzebra-printerszpl


Solution 1:[1]

I got this working by creating a socket connection with ZPL printer and writing ZPL content to output stream. Refer https://github.com/khpraful/ZPLPrint/blob/master/src/ZebraPrinter.java for more details. I tried with locally installed ZPL print emulator.

Sources

This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Overflow and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Source: Stack Overflow

Solution Source
Solution 1 Praful Khandelwal

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