ZT410 does not print serial number when surrounding text > 18 characters

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C Christopher Morrison 2 years 11 months ago
44 2 0

Hello,
 
I have some labels that include a DataMatrix barcode which contains a comma delimited string with a four digit serial number at the end. Example:
 
^BXR,8,200,,,,_,1^FH^FVRV-354,169659508,2000,0001^SF%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%dddd^FS
 
These labels have been printing correctly on older model Zebra printers for many years. I cannot get the serial number to work properly when I print these labels on a brand-new ZT410.
 
I started over with an example from the ZPL programming manual:
 
^XA
^FO100,100^ADR,36,20^FDABCD0001XXXX^SF%%%%dddd%%%%,10000^FS
^PQ3
^XZ
 
The first example (above) works correctly. Second example:
 
^XA
^FO100,100^ADR,36,20^FDABCDEFGHIJK0001XXXX^SF%%%%%%%%%%%dddd%%%%,10000^FS
^PQ3
^XZ
 
The second example (above) does NOT work correctly. Finally:
 
^XA
^FO100,100^ADR,36,20^FDABCDEFGHIJK0001XXX^SF%%%%%%%%%%%dddd%%%,1000^FS
^PQ3
^XZ
 
The third example (above) works correctly. It appears to me there is a problem when the field data is longer than 18 characters.
 
If you have any advice I would greatly appreciate it.
 
Thank you in advance,
 
Chris Morrison

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2 Replies

S Samantha Corn

Hi Chris,

Have you checked to see if your ZT410 is on the latest version of the firmware? The latest version is V75.20.01Z. You can check which firmware version the printer has by sending the ~WC command to print a configuration report (more details on page 328 of the ZPL Programming Guide). The latest firmware can be found on the ZT410 product page. Here's an article covering the different ways to update the firmware.

I ask about the firmware because support for longer character strings for Datamatrix barcodes was added in V75.19.13Z.

C Christopher Morrison

Hello Samantha.  Thank you for taking the time to reply.  My ZT410 is using the latest firmware, V75.20.01Z.  I was also able to reproduce this issue on a ZT230.  Both printers are relatively new... the ZT410 has not even been used in our production environment yet due to this issue.  The ZT230 is using firmware V72.19.15Z.

I have been using the techniques described above for many, many years.  The serial number in the barcode prints correctly on our older Zebra printers (TLP-3844z, 110xiIII Plus).

I do want to add that we also print the same serial number in a separate field by itself using the ^SN command.  That works fine.  There is something different about these new printers that only affects the serial numbers that are embedded in a ^FS or ^FV command.

To be honest, the relevant section of the ZPL programming manual is very difficult to understand.  Semantic clusters, backing store, etc.

Can you please try to print some of my examples in the original post to see if you can reproduce the problem?

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