Thermal Printing¶

Setup¶

There is no setup!

Simply download the RocketShipIt print server from your My Account page and execute it. After the server starts, your default browser should open to the welcome page.

Configuation¶

The RocketShipIt Print Server will detect all available printers. You can switch printers from the web interface by clicking the dropdown and selecting the thermal printer you wish to send labels to.

Then press Print Test Label to print a sample label. Please note that this test label is in EPL format which should work for most printers but not all. This test print usually works but if it doesn’t, don’t worry. It may mean that your printer needs ZPL or another format which you can send via HTTP POST.

Sending Labels¶

To send labels to the RocketShipIt Print Server simply do a application/x-www-form-urlencoded HTTP post to the print server url (default is http://localhost:8080).

The easiest way to do this which also works from over the internet is to create a PHP page on your webserver and output a form on a page like this:

<form method="post" action="http://localhost:8080">
    <input type="hidden" name="label" value="<?php echo $base64Label; ?>" />
    <input type="submit" value="Print" />
</form>

Then navigate to this page from the computer hooked up to the printer with the RocketShipIt Print Server running and click the Print button. Since the computer you are currently on is hooked up to the printer and is localhost it will print.

Once you have this working, you may want to automate this further. For example you can use JavaScript to automatically open a window and click this print button for you. You may want to send the label directly via cURL or some other means. As long as it is sent via HTTP and the name of the param is label it will print.

Sending Multiple Labels at Once¶

You can also send many labels in one request:

<form method="post" action="http://localhost:8080">
    <input type="hidden" name="label[]" value="<?php echo $base64Label; ?>" />
    <input type="hidden" name="label[]" value="<?php echo $secondBase64Label; ?>" />
    <input type="submit" value="Print" />
</form>

Or use:

<form method="post" action="http://localhost:8080">
    <input type="hidden" name="label" value="<?php echo $base64Label; ?>" />
    <input type="hidden" name="label" value="<?php echo $secondBase64Label; ?>" />
    <input type="submit" value="Print" />
</form>

POST Parameters¶

More Configuration¶

The configuration of the RocketShipIt print server is done by editing the config.json file that comes with the server. You can also edit the config through the web interface.

The default config is:

{
  "host": "localhost",
  "port": "8080",
  "printer": "my_printer9000",
  "open_browser": true
}

Options

HeartBeat Options

The RocketShipIt Print Server comes with the ability to periodically send data back to a url of your choice. We call this a heart beat. This can be useful if you are in an environment with multiple printers and want to determine which printers are currently online/active.

Example heartbeat config:

{
    "heart_beat_url": "http://192.168.1.80:8080/yourheartbeat/reciever",
    "heart_beat_interval": 30,
    "heart_beat_params": {
        "client_version": "1.0.0",
        "function": "tags",
        "name": "Workstation 1"
    }
}

Example heartbeat POST request:

{
  "printer": {
    "printer": "my_printer9000",
    "available_printers": [
      "Zebra_Technologies_ZTC_ZP_450_200dpi"
    ],
    "port": "8080",
    "online": "1",
    "ip": "localhost",
    "version": "0.2.39",
    "params": {
      "client_version": "1.0.0",
      "function": "tags",
      "name": "Workstation 1"
    }
  }
}

If the heart_beat_url is not set, the server will not attempt to send a “heart beat”.

Send labels through HeartBeat

Any time you receive a heart beat from the RocketShipIt Print server you can optionally reply with one or more labels to be printed. This essentially allows the print server to pull labels periodically in addition to the normal label pushing through HTTP POST requests.

Example reply:

{"labels": ["label1base64EncodedString...", "label2base64EncodedString..."]}

Print Queues¶

In addition to being able to print through HTTP POST and heart beat replies, the RocketShipIt Print Server can also pull print jobs from supported queue systems.

The RocketShipIt Print Server currently supports the following queue systems:

• Amazon SQS
• Beanstalkd

Coming soon:

• IronMQ
• Celery
• ZeroMQ

Here is an example config snippit for the Amazon SQS queue:

{
    "queues": [{
        "type": "sqs",
        "region": "us-west-2",
        "url":"https://sqs.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/123/your-queue"
    }]
}

In this example the RocketShipIt Print Server will connect to your Amazon SQS queue and automatically print any valid base64 encoded labels it receives.

Here is an example config snippit for Beanstalkd:

{
    "queues": [{
        "type": "beanstalkd",
        "endpoint": "127.0.0.1:11300"
    }]
}

Print Server Endpoints¶

Sending GIF/Jpeg/PNG images to Thermal Printer¶

It is now possible to send GIF/Jpeg/PNG images. The RocketShipIt Print Server will automatically detect if the label you are sending is a GIF, Jpeg, or PNG image and make the necessary adjustments to send the label to the thermal printer in native ZPL/EPL code. Please note that it is always better to send ZPL/EPL labels to the thermal printer wherever possible as the quality is better. Please use this feature as a last resort.

Since Zebra/Eltron thermal printers are not meant to print graphic images these labels are slow to start printing and quality will be degraded.

Currently the print server rotates and resizes to 4x6 label stock. It is currently only recommended to use this for UPS labels at this time (UPS currently has a bug where COD labels can NOT be generated in EPL/ZPL). If you have a need to send graphic images from other carriers please contact us.

Permanently Trust Self-signed Cert (macOS)¶

Start by downloading a self-signed root cert Self-signed root certificate

• Open Keychain Access
• File -> Import Items...
• Add Certificates.p12 password is RocketShipIt
• Make it trusted
• Add 127.0.0.1 printserver.local to your /etc/hosts file.

Printing a ZPL Thermal Pack List¶

You can now send a specified JSON POST request to /packlist to generate and print a ZPL thermal packlist:

{
  "order_number": "1000002",
  "date": "08/07/2015",
  "user": "support@rocketship.it",
  "ship_date": "08/12/2015",
  "shipping_cost": 10.88,
  "tax": 5.00,
  "discounts": 10.00,
  "shipper_address": {
    "name": "RocketShipIt",
    "addr1": "101 E Ave",
    "addr2": "#100",
    "city": "San Francisco",
    "state": "CA",
    "postcode": "94115"

  },
  "to_address": {
    "name": "John Doe",
    "addr1": "123 Main St",
    "addr2": "#14",
    "city": "San Francisco",
    "state": "CA",
    "postcode": "94115"
  },
  "items": [
    {
       "sku": "ups",
       "desc": "RocketShipIt for UPS Shippers",
      "price": 289,
      "qty": 1
    }
  ],
  "custom_fields": [
    {
      "key": "my field",
      "value": "foo"
    },
     {
      "key": "my field 2",
      "value": "bar"
    },
    {
      "key": "my field 3",
      "value": "another custom"
    }
  ]
}

Response:

This end point will return status OK on success or status Error on error:

{
    "Status": "OK",
    "Message": ""
}

Windows Specific Considerations¶

Windows 7

You can increase print speed if you uncheck Enable Bidirectional Communication under the printer properties -> Ports section.