c# - Printing PNG images to a zebra network printer

Question

I am trying to find a way of printing images to a zebra and having a lot of trouble.

According to the docs:

The first encoding, known as B64, encodes the data using the MIME Base64 scheme. Base64 is used to encode e-mail atachedments ...
Base64 encodes six bits to the byte, for an expantion of 33 percent over the un-enclosed data.
The second encoding, known as Z64, first compresses the data using the LZ77 algorithm to reduce its size. (This algorithm is used by the PKZIP and is intergral to the PNG graphics format.)
The compressed data is then encoded using the MIME Base64 scheme as described above.
A CRC will be calculated accross the Base64-encoded data.

But it doesn't have a great deal more info.

Basically I was trying encoding with

private byte[] GetItemFromPath(string filepath)
{   
    using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
    {
        using (Image img = Image.FromFile(filepath))
        {
            img.Save(ms, ImageFormat.Png);
            return ms.ToArray();
        }
    }
}

Then trying to print with something like:

var initialArray = GetItemFromPath("C:\RED.png");
string converted = Convert.ToBase64String(b);

PrintThis(string.Format(@"~DYRED.PNG,P,P,{1},0,:B64:
{0}
^XA
^F0200,200^XGRED.PNG,1,1^FS
^XZ", converted .ToString(), initialArray.Length));

From the sounds of it, either B64 or Z64 are both accepted.

I've tried a few variations, and a couple of methods for generating the CRC and calculating the 'size'. But none seem to work and the download of the graphics to the printer is always getting aborted.

Has anyone managed to accomplish something like this? Or knows where I am going wrong?

Answer 1

All credit for me coming to this answer was from LabView Forum user Raydur. He posts a LabView solution that can be opened up in LabView to send images down. I personally didn't run it with my printer, I just used it to figure out the correct image code so I could replicate it in my code. The big thing that I was missing was padding my Hexadecimal code. For example, 1A is fine, but if you have just A, you need to pad a 0 in front of it to send 0A. The size of the file in the ZPL you are sending is also the original size of the byte array, not the final string representation of the data.

I've scoured many, many, many forums and Stackoverflow posts trying to figure this out because it seems like such a simple thing to do. I've tried every single solution posted elsewhere but I really wanted to just print a.PNG because the manual for my printer(Mobile QLN320) has support for it built-in. It says to either send it in Base64 or Hexadecimal, and I tried both to no avail. For anyone wanting to do Base64, I found in an older manual that you need to manually calculate CRC codes for each packet you send so I chose to go with the easier Hexadecimal route. So here is the code I got to work!

        string ipAddress = "192.168.1.30";
        int port = 6101;

        string zplImageData = string.Empty;
        //Make sure no transparency exists. I had some trouble with this. This PNG has a white background
        string filePath = @"C:UsersPathToLogo.png";
        byte[] binaryData = System.IO.File.ReadAllBytes(filePath);
        foreach (Byte b in binaryData)
        {
            string hexRep = String.Format("{0:X}", b);
            if (hexRep.Length == 1)
                hexRep = "0" + hexRep;
            zplImageData += hexRep;
          }
          string zplToSend = "^XA" + "^MNN" + "^LL500" + "~DYE:LOGO,P,P," + binaryData.Length + ",," + zplImageData+"^XZ";
          string printImage = "^XA^FO115,50^IME:LOGO.PNG^FS^XZ";

        try
        {
            // Open connection
            System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient client = new System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient();
            client.Connect(ipAddress, port);

            // Write ZPL String to connection
            System.IO.StreamWriter writer = new System.IO.StreamWriter(client.GetStream(),Encoding.UTF8);
            writer.Write(zplToSend);
            writer.Flush();
            writer.Write(printImage);
            writer.Flush();
            // Close Connection
            writer.Close();
            client.Close();
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            // Catch Exception
        }