Cobol - Bitmaps

Author

Bitmaps

jmoore207@gmail.com

2007-08-22, 6:55 pm

I have a logo (bitmap) that I want to send to a datamax printer for
the top of a label. Pretty new to datamax label printers. If I have
the bmp on my computer in the data directory. Not sure how to
accomplish getting this on the label. Should I create an indexed file
with the .bmp as the field and read the file and load it or is there a
way to actually place it in memory on the datamax printer? Any help
would be appreciated. Thank you!

jmoore207@gmail.com

2007-08-23, 9:55 pm

On Aug 22, 2:22 pm, jmoore...@gmail.com wrote:
> I have a logo (bitmap) that I want to send to a datamax printer for
> the top of a label. Pretty new to datamax label printers. If I have
> the bmp on my computer in the data directory. Not sure how to
> accomplish getting this on the label. Should I create an indexed file
> with the .bmp as the field and read the file and load it or is there a
> way to actually place it in memory on the datamax printer? Any help
> would be appreciated. Thank you!

ANY HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED

Kellie Fitton

2007-08-23, 9:55 pm

On Aug 22, 11:22 am, jmoore...@gmail.com wrote:
> I have a logo (bitmap) that I want to send to a datamax printer for
> the top of a label. Pretty new to datamax label printers. If I have
> the bmp on my computer in the data directory. Not sure how to
> accomplish getting this on the label. Should I create an indexed file
> with the .bmp as the field and read the file and load it or is there a
> way to actually place it in memory on the datamax printer? Any help
> would be appreciated. Thank you!

Hi,

Well, I don't think you can store a bitmap image in a COBOL indexed
file.
to print your bitmap logo you would need to use the Windows APIs, and
the bitmap file should be a DIB image (Device Independant Bitmap).

So, if you want to use the Windows APIs to print your bitmap logo,
just post back and I will list those functions. By the way, I never
used
datamax label printers before, so printing your logo with the labels
and
any other information you might have will be a challenge.

Kellie.

Richard

2007-08-23, 9:55 pm

On Aug 24, 2:45 am, jmoore...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Aug 22, 2:22 pm, jmoore...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> ANY HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED

It may be that no one has even heard of "datamax" printer let alone
tried to send it a bitmap. You may be better in a group that cares
about such things, but I have no idea what that would be.

I did write Cobol code to send a bitmap to dot matrix printer. It
wasn't too bad once I worked out it had to be done from the end. They
were signatures and I had control of how they were scanned, sized and
so on but it did require understanding the graphics mode of the
printer.

Now that I search Google (have you done this) I find:

"""Love your Datamax, BUT need to run Zebra ZPL code? Now you don't
have to buy a Zebra printer. DataCol has been supplying Datamax
printers that run a 100% ZPL emulation since July 2006. The printers
can be swapped between DPL (Datamax language) and ZPL input, either
from the LCD menu or with a simple software command. This FREE
Firmware upgrade can be installed on ANY of the printers listed
below."""

Now I have done Zebra ZPL and it ain't particularly hard, but Datamax
DPL is obviously different.

You probably will need to read the bitmap as a SEQUENTIAL file and
will get an error when the last 'record' is read as it is unlikely to
be a nice multiple of the 'records' you read it into. If it was ZPL
you would then need to convert the bytes to ASCII hex valuess (2 hex
characters per byte) and stick them on a ^DDa,b,data command. Where
a=total bytes and b=bytes per row.

tleaders...gmail.com

2007-08-27, 7:58 am

On Aug 23, 10:29 pm, Richard <rip...@Azonic.co.nz> wrote:
> On Aug 24, 2:45 am, jmoore...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
>
> It may be that no one has even heard of "datamax" printer let alone
> tried to send it a bitmap. You may be better in a group that cares
> about such things, but I have no idea what that would be.
>
> I did write Cobol code to send a bitmap to dot matrix printer. It
> wasn't too bad once I worked out it had to be done from the end. They
> were signatures and I had control of how they were scanned, sized and
> so on but it did require understanding the graphics mode of the
> printer.
>
> Now that I search Google (have you done this) I find:
>
> """Love your Datamax, BUT need to run Zebra ZPL code? Now you don't
> have to buy a Zebra printer. DataCol has been supplying Datamax
> printers that run a 100% ZPL emulation since July 2006. The printers
> can be swapped between DPL (Datamax language) and ZPL input, either
> from the LCD menu or with a simple software command. This FREE
> Firmware upgrade can be installed on ANY of the printers listed
> below."""
>
> Now I have done Zebra ZPL and it ain't particularly hard, but Datamax
> DPL is obviously different.
>
> You probably will need to read the bitmap as a SEQUENTIAL file and
> will get an error when the last 'record' is read as it is unlikely to
> be a nice multiple of the 'records' you read it into. If it was ZPL
> you would then need to convert the bytes to ASCII hex valuess (2 hex
> characters per byte) and stick them on a ^DDa,b,data command. Where
> a=total bytes and b=bytes per row.

As long as you are printing logos and not an image that changes with
every label, and requesting label on an ASCII machine,
I would recommend that you download one of the free label design
programs and layout the label you need to print. Include all the
fields that will be on the final label. Example, is you are printing a
mailing label include the name an address fields on the label.
Then print the label to "File". This will create an ASCII text file
that contains all the codes needed to print the label.
Now that you have the codes you can either put the entire label layout
into working storage or read it as a sequential text file, and replace
the name/address field values with the correct information.

I used Zebra's Bar-one software when I did this process. Bar-One is
now discontinued, but you should be able to find something

Good luck
Tom

Sponsored Links