Tips for Printing to Zebra Printers from Crystal Reports

Procedure:

Using the ZDesigner Driver:
 

1. Define the page size in Crystal Reports as the correct Zebra printer label size.
2. Crystal Reports define the Zebra printer and ZDesigner driver as being used by the Report.
3. Once printing successfully in a test environment, make certain that this same environment with the same driver and setup is used in the production environment.
4. Make sure you are using the most current version of Crystal Reports. There was a known Crystal Reports issue in previous versions that could cause the program to lose its knowledge of the printer settings. This was true for all printers, not just Zebra printers.
5. If all else fails, consider Zebra Label Design Software and a direct connection to your database.

Unlike Zebra Label Design Software, Crystal Reports was primarily designed to print to sheets of paper and not to individual labels.

NOTE If you are printing successfully but the barcodes printed on your labels will not scan, here are two possible suggestions.

1. You may be able to correct the issue by resizing your barcodes before sending them to the printer. This is because the barcodes generated when printing from Crystal Reports are rendered as graphics. If the size of the barcode is not an exact multiple of the print head dpi for your Zebra printer, it can print but may not be scannable. This will take some trial and error to find a larger or smaller version of the barcode that will scan.

2. The ZDesigner Driver includes a Command Font feature that allows you to pass commands directly through to the printer.

NOTE  Limitations with .NET should also be considered if you are developing in the .NET environment. The .NET framework does not allow the use of Printer Fonts, you can only use True Type and Open Type fonts. Customers using Crystal Reports in .NET are affected by this restriction of the .NET framework.

• Zebra Programming Guide