How to retrieve a pdf or zpl file and print it from flow

Flow Classic
1

Hello
As a part of a scanning routine, at the end of scanning the product, I want to be able to retrieve a pdf label (could also be a zpl label) from a file share and print it to a prespecified printer ( A zebra printer). Is this possible through Flow. Currently only have an Oracle database connector. Was thinking of using utl file in pl/sql, but if there is a slicker way ?

Thanks
Paul

2

Hi,
the pdf you should be able to retrieve using the file connector. Then what is common is to have the file gallery element display the label (e.g. in the web client) and print it from there by using Windows print function. That is based on that you want to print from a PC.
I remember Zebra used to have the possibility to drop a file in a folder and the printer would pick whatever gets put there and print it, so that could also be an option if you are on a mobile device. If the zebra is smart enough to speak REST (not sure if they are?), you could potentially also use the REST connector to stream a file to it. Files and printing are always a bit tricky and it depends a lot on your setup.

3

Hi,

if the file is saved somewhere then, as Ola said, you can fetch it into flow with the file connector (file to zip, zip to stream)

  1. if the scanner device is running iOS maybe you can look into Flow Print
    In theory you could use the external app launcher to pass the zpl file data from Flow to Flow Print
    External app launcher - Flow Help
    Flow Print on the App Store (apple.com)

(maybe you can use external app launcer and point it to some other app, Zebra PrintConnect…)

  1. Zebra printers can be registered as network printers and then can be available to any device in the network.
    So, as Ola said, you could fetch the pdf file, show it in flow file gallery, use any pdf reader to open it and print to the zebra printer from there.
    The really hard part is setting up the default margins so that the PDF matches the label size (we did this on the printer itself as well as on the PDF we generated and both methods sucked :slight_smile: )

  2. If you use IFS it is possible to register the Zebra Printer as a logical printer and print from flow by generating IFS print jobs.

It is also possible to generate a dummy IFS print job, then take your pdf, insert it to IFS, connect it to the print job and then print using IFS.

(This also means adjusting margins and we had issues when inserting PDFs with always having one blank page at the start, meaning always one blank label)

Hope this helps!

B R
Ivan

4

Hi

thanks - that gives me a few things to investigate !

Thanks

Paul