UPS Thermal Printer with Leopard

B

BradM

Registered
We replaced our office machines with iMacs this week to try to lower user errors and such.

We discovered that we can print our UPS labels via LP2844 printer now but we have an issue. The label doesn't FIT correctly. I remove margins when printing to the thermal and set the label size. But when it prints there is a good inch or more on each side of white space and the label won't fit to the sides. Even clicking "Fit to ..." doesn't work.

Anyone have any tips or ideas on how to get this to work? It's becoming quite frustrating.
 
Which software are you using?
Which version of the driver are you using?
Have you done File>Page Setup...?
Are you using the proper orientation for your labels?
 
I am using a UPS supplied Eltron 2844 (UPS PRINTER) along with the standard web shipping. When you right click to download the label (GIF image) and try to print using the UPS Printer (Preview.app) in MAC OS 10.5 Leopard (built-in driver now YAY!) the prints are either too small and of poor quality or way to large an span 2 labels. I played with all the printer page setup and specific printer settings to no avail. I even tried using Pixelmator (AKA Photoshop clone) to adjust resolution and size, but still the same output! Anyone figure this out yet?
 
Hello. My experience is that with Endicia software, the labels print flawlessly, but when I grab the image from the UPS page or eBay and try and print from Preview, the image is of poor quality and UPS guy tells me it is unscannable.

I haven't tried right-clicking the image and printing yet. That might work.

Another weird thing is that when I grab and print from Preview on an HP 5740 or 2210 the image comes out with parts that are green-- also unscannable. The image is also cut off on the bottom and left side in portrait mode. I was beginning to suspect Preview as being the culprit, but really need more data from you other users before drawing any conclusions.

Third-party solutions exist, but are pricey, ranging from $250 for one driver to $749/year for a shipping software solution that integrates with UPS, etc. Both out of scale and overpriced due to lack of competition.

As for formatting the image, that has not been a problem. I select 4"x6" paper in landscape mode and then either "scale to fit" or an appropriate reduction percentage with "center image".

To summarize, Endicia's software prints great labels, printing from eBay or UPS's site has not been satisfactory thus far. I'm hoping that someone of you will open my eyes to a new possibility.

Best,

mxlpxl
 
NRGSoft has a software that is about $299. This is a lot cheaper than the $749 price. In the latest OSX you can manually install that Thermal 2844 with the Zebra EPL 1.3 driver. However, you will experience a epl2 warning. I am taking my 2844 today to some friends that are pretty good with software to see if they can create some work around for me. If we can figure out anything I will let you know. I used the trial version of NRGSoft and I personally did not like it as it could not recognize two of my customer's addresses. I refuse to pay $299 for software then pay more money for their validation software to validate my addresses. That is almost the price of a cheap windows laptop that will do the work for free.

I am using Parallels which I think is a good financial investment. The problem I am running into is that Parallels is not recognizing this device. It recognizes all other USB devices except this 2844. If you can get it to work on Parallels, I am sure they have a demo version out, I suggest buying Parallels as you can use it for other things ALWAYS!
 
This weekend I found a fix with VMware. I am using their trial. Parallels did not recognize the Zebra LP 2844 when I connected it. However, it recognized all other USB devices...weird. The only thing is... I also use Endicia (there may be a driver conflict from the two operating systems...read on to understand). Endicia still prints well in OSX. VMware recognized the Zebra and the labels print perfect. I use the UPS Internet site (not Worldship). The only thing is... I have to print a Test Page first in VMware first then the UPS label will print correctly. Originally we uninstalled Endicia to troubleshoot so there was no conflict of interest. VMware printed the UPS labels flawlessly without having to print the test page. Then AFTER the Endicia install VMware starting printing the shipping label on two instead of one.

We worked on this all day and got tired of troubleshooting this issue. For now I am wasting a label before every print job. This sucks but it is the only work around I have found. I don't know if that helps you or not. Good luck.
 
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Mary Mary, I have been trying to figure out this issue with VMWare and trying to find a work around in order to use the thermal printer with fedex and ups. Does anyone know a new way of doing this since this thread is 2 years old?
 
Okay, whatever the others are talking about they arent addressing the issue. Your computer is using the incorrect driver for the printer itself, its probably using a default that obviously isnt working. You have two options:
First you can play around with the manual size options, like 50% or whatever.
Second and best you can go to http://www.zebra.com/id/zebra/na/en/index/products/printers/desktop/lp2844.4.tabs.html and download the proper driver, this should fix the issue altogether. If you cant find one for the mac, which you might not then find the proper percantage (50% or 75%?) like in option 1 and then go into print (command-p), preview (bottom left), print (command-p), set the size, then click presets at the top, save as. This way when you print go into your presets and select the one you saved.
 
I just got a Zebra 2844 and have begun to experiment under 10.6.3 using a usb cable. I can get it to print using the built in Apple elp2 driver, but the quality is poor from a jpeg. I have no problem with the image fitting to size from a jpeg on my desktop using preview. You need to make a custom page size in your print dialogue box when you go to print, "paper size" select other and enter in the 4" width and a 6" length. TIP, only install the printer driver once you have labels in the machine!
I do not use endecia or anything like that to print my labels. And don't plan to.
I just printed a USPS sample from the paypal web site using a recent label reprint. The quality is much better (seems like it would be acceptable) but I seem to be having a formatting issue now as the other poster mentioned, I need to get it to print the correct scale from the Java window. It seems to think the default paper size is 8.5 x 11..... ANy help here would be appreciated.
I will mess with it some more. Looks like it could work if I can get the paper size thing worked out. Has any one had any experience with printing UPS labels from PAy PAL? does that work?
Thanks
 
I have been fighting with the 2844 for over a week to print labels out of USPS paypal and have just figured it out. I was having problems getting the image of the label to be centered on the label. It would constantly print in the middle of two labels and off to the right side, so only half the label would be visible. After much searching I stumbled on the CUPS site and poked around there and then found a post on the Apple Discussion forum called "setting default paper size for Safari and Mail" The last post had the following suggestion.
1. Quit Safari
2. Open Firefox
3. Go to File -> Page Setup.. and set the settings to your desired paper size
4. Select Format For: Any Printer
5. Select 'Save as Default' in the Settings drop down
6. Open Safari again the paper size will hopefully default to what you want
The key here is to set the default paper size in the browser you are printing from, in this case it's Firefox for me.
It worked! It caused the image in the Java window to be forced to the top and the left of the window, so that my Zebra 2844 can print it correctly.
I had spoken to PayPal tech support and they were no help in finding a solution. Don't let them tell you that it is not possible to print labels in OS-X for USPS
I am running 10.6.3 on a macbook with a linksys-G WPS54G wireless USB printserver connected to my Zebra LP2844PSAT
I hope this helps someone and good luck
 
Alternatively, could you not preview the label from the print dialog and print from preview with the desired page size?
 
In Firefox you can only see the label and the positioning for a brief second, in Safari (I guess java works better in that app) you can see the label the entire time. For the print to come out correctly it need to be positioned in the top left of the Java window, if is centered in the middle of the page if will not print correctly, follow my previous post and "Save as Default" in the page set up with the correct page size and you should be fine.
I also wanted to note that I had a Zebra 2844 printer and have recently gotten a 2844-Z, both work for printing USPS labels just fine, the 2844-Z uses the Zebra ZPL driver not the EPL2 driver that the regular 2844 does. Both of them have USB and work great with that. The 2844-Z that I have has an ethernet port and work well over your home network as well. I am using it with a wireless linksys print server as I mentioned previously and that is also working great with the 2844-Z
Now if we could just get PayPAl to support label printers with UPS that would be fantastic, OH.... and they should add a few more shipping companies like FED EX and DHL
 
Heres how you do it. Ive been using this system for the last year. OSX 10.6. Add a printer, use the epl2 drivers. Generate your label using paypal or UPS online. Drag the label into Preview. Print to 2844: You MUST use 203 dpi. Set your page size to 4 by 6" (you must do this each time you print). The default orientation is horizontal. The orientation must match or set it to auto rotate. Use Auto size. Perfect print every time without getting that bad windows taste in your mouth!
 
That's what I've been doing, however Preview doesn't send a very clean image to the printer so barcodes and text alike don't get anti-aliased very well. Any fix to that?
 
OK, so I tried out the suggestion from markpsrl about UPS label printing, saving into Preview is a pain in the ass, but, I was successful and it does work. As for the resolution question posed by earthsaver, I would say the print is so so, not great and it might get picked up by the scanner, I will have to see when I drop it off and they scan it. It seems that from the mac resolution is set to the 203dpi but when my friend prints to my zebra the resolution from windows is a bit higher, the image is very crisp and sharp printing a USPS label, I think 300dpi, I think that would increase the resolution all the way around If I could get that set as default. I was messing around and figured the following out. Try this, in Firefox (not sure about safari) control or right click on the actual label and select "view Image" That will bring up the label graphic in it's own window in the browser. In "print set up" for the browser set scale to 75% and print your image with scale to fit, I was able to print the label, I think resolution is a bit worse than the Preview method but it might work and save a few steps. If anyone can figure out how to increases the resolution with out increasing the image at the same time please post it here, I would love to get a better resolution on all the labels that I print like my windows friends.
Post ur results here for the world to see.
 
You can manually increase the resolution of the printer but it will cause image zooming and not fit on the label. The full resolution is 203 dpi and I think the only way to get a cleaner looking image is with a different driver. UPS and USPS are successful at scanning my labels. I think the only available image improvement would be had by paying for and using NRGship for UPS and Endicia for USPS.
 
I have been using the method stated above by earthsaver to print my UPS labels for the last month with good success. I have preview in my doc and I just drag the label on the icon right from my browser and it pops right up in the preview window. I noticed that the label did not fit quite right on the 4x6 sticker. If you command-"-" the graphic it will shrink just slightly and you can use the select tool to select the entire label except the bottom white part, then hit command "K" and crop it you label will be 4x6 and fill the entire label when you print it and it will look like an official UPS label instead of some misshapen label printed in the wrong aspect ratio. Good luck. Will we ever see and updated driver that prints better quality from Apple? who knows..... I sure hope so.
 
Lunakov said:
OK, so I tried out the suggestion from markpsrl about UPS label printing, saving into Preview is a pain in the ass, but, I was successful and it does work. .... If anyone can figure out how to increases the resolution with out increasing the image at the same time please post it here, I would love to get a better resolution on all the labels that I print like my windows friends.
Post ur results here for the world to see.
Click to expand...

I answered this in another forum yesterday too... but what I do is a 2-step process, where I first download the label generated by UPS.com, then manually send it to my Zebra printer. This is preferable to copying the label image and printing it because you get full resolution, so the label looks nice and sharp.

The easy way to download the label is to use a download manager (I'm using Speed Download), and tell the DM to handle the MIME type "application/epl2", which is the file type for a UPS label. Now, every time Speed Download sees this type of file sent, it downloads it to my Mac. Once the label file is on your Mac, you have to send it to the printer. So far, I do this on the command line. Just like other *nixes, you can use 'lp' to send the file. Or, if you have a network-attached Zebra, you can use NetCat to send the file: 'nc PRINTER_IP 9100 < /path/to/label/file' (substitute your Zebra's IP for "PRINTER_IP"). This technique works perfectly, though anyone shipping more than a few packages a week will likely find this a bit cumbersome.

This situation could be easily solved if UPS would just release a Mac plugin. All the UPS Plugin for Windows is is a special-purpose MIME handler; it looks for the MIME type indicating a Zebra "EPL" file and sends it directly to the Zebra printer. Wouldn't be hard to write the same thing for Mac OS.
Someone wrote an open-source plugin for Linux, but it isn't being maintained. It's on SourceForge here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/upsplugin/files/
If that project were resuscitated, we could have an open-source, multi-platform solution.

HTH...
 
earthsaver said:
Is there a free download manager you would recommend using that would also work?
Click to expand...
Right now, none that I know of, but I'm still looking. I find that many download managers let you add custom file extensions, but not MIME types. If I come across something, I'll post it here.

What I'd really like to do is dust off my old "C" programming books and take a whack at that open-source plugin on Sourceforge.
 
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