Barcode Printing via PHP

The Project

For the past two weeks, I’m very busy developing a web based application using both barcode scanner and barcode printer. It was a lot of fun and excitement. I really love this job.

The project is about an automation system for an SD card manufacturing company. Each SD card chips has its own barcode on it. Depending on its type, every 320 chips (other types are 25) the system will create a Lot Number that will serve as ID for that group when placed in a box.

Programming the Barcode Scanner is not that really hard. All you have to do is allocate a textbox with maximum length and put a submit button. When the barcode is scanned, it will release a Carriage Return at the end of the code, then will trigger your submit button. Then a JavaScript code will catch the event, therefore processing the scanned barcode so easy.

The tricky part is the barcode printer.

How to

To print barcode into a barcode printer, you need to use the printers own programming language and some standard codes. Moreover, you need to configure Apache in order to print. Here are the initial configurations:

1. Install the Barcode Printer on any PC / workstation you want.
2. Share the Barcode Printer and be sure to grant the necessary access so that our server will be able to print.
3. On the Web Server, configure Apache to run as a user and grant that user access to the printer.
4. Configure PHP to have the php_printer.dll enabled (sorry, Windows only!)
5. The step above only applies if you are running PHP via web. When you run it via command line, you only need to grant print access to the user whom the script is run.
6. Do the dirty codes.

The codes

The codes for printing is actually very simple. Of course you need to configure your PHP first as mentioned above.

First: Open the printer. printer_open()

Second: Set printing mode to raw. printer_set_option()

Third: Write data (printer commands) printer_write()

You will only need these three simple functions as far as barcode printing is concern. The rest of the complexity if on the printer commands and printer settings.

So to sum up the codes, here it is:

//open printer
$handle = printer_open('Printer Name'); //or it could be \\pcname\printername
//set printing option to raw
printer_set_option($handle, PRINTER_MODE, 'RAW');
//write date to printer
$data = 'sample printer command';
$ret = printer_write($handle, $data);
//close the printer handle
printer_close($handle);

Barcode Printer Programming with SATO Barcode Printer

This last part is dedicated to the barcode printer command specified as $data on the above code. Let us discuss first the basics of Barcode Printer programming.

The client is using SATO GT408e Barcode Printer, thus I will be programming based on the printers manual. However, most of the basic commands are more or less the same as other brands.

To send commands to the printer, using any language, you need to send data to the printer as data stream. To send command correctly, we need to set the printing option to RAW so that the data will be interpreted as commands. Take this command for example:

{ESC}A
{ESC}A3H1374V0001
{ESC}H0050{ESC}V0100{ESC}L0303{ESC}XMSATO
{ESC}H0050{ESC}V0200{ESC}B103100*SATO*
{ESC}H0170{ESC}V0310{ESC}L0101{ESC}XUSATO
{ESC}Q1
{ESC}Z

{ESC} is the escape character chr(27) on your keyboard. It means that a command will follow after this character. Please note that the command above should not have any new line character. The command is a continuous string with new new line break. It is just break for readability.

The A command means that it is the beginning of all print jobs. The code is: {ESC}A

A3H1374V0001

The actual command here is A3 which means you are setting the base reference point. The base reference point is the position (in points) where all your printing positioning starts. You can think of it as the reference point where all your position calculations are based. For example, if you print something at position 0,100 (x, y) – the text or image is printed at position 0,100 starting from the base reference point.

It has parameters, the X and Y or horizontal and vertical parameters.

A3H1374V0001 = A3 H1374 V0001

The format is A3HaaaaVbbbb – where a is the 4-digit horizontal integer value and bbbb is the vertical value. Based on the code, you are setting the base reference point to 1374,1 (x,y) beginning from the topmost left portion of the printing area.

Mostly, you will only have to get the horizontal value. This is because the printing paper is not always as wide as the maximum printing area. For further details, read your manual.

{ESC}H0050{ESC}V0100{ESC}L0303{ESC}XMSATO – This is a series of commands that we need to dissect first its parts.

H0050 – sets the horizontal position (from the base reference point) for the next item to print. The syntax is Haaaa – where aaaa is a 4-digit integer value for horizontal position.

V0100 – sets the vertical position (from the base reference point) for the next item to print. Syntax is Vaaaa – still it is 4-digit.

L0303 – sets the character expansion. Expands the character horizontally and vertically. The syntax is Laabb where aa is the horizontal expansion from 0-12 and bb is the vertical expansion from 0-12.

XMSATO – the command is XM SATO, where XM is a font type. Specifies the 24W x 24H dot matrix font (includes descenders) and SATO is the text to be printed. Anything that follow XM will be printed using its font. The size is affected by the previous L0303 command which enlarges the text.

{ESC}H0050{ESC}V0200{ESC}B103100*SATO* – once again we need to separate its parts.

H0050 and V0200 positions the next text to be printed just below the previous text 200 points below.

B103100*SATO* – this is the barcode command that prints the actual barcode. The syntax is Babbcccd.

B – starts the barcode command
a – type of barcode used. Possible values are:

0: Codabar
1: Code 39
2: Interleaved 2 of 5 (I 2/5)
3: UPC-A / EAN-13
4: EAN-8
5: Industrial 2 of 5
6: Matrix 2 of 5
7: reserved
8: reserved
9: reserved
A: MSI
B: reserved
C: Code 93
D: reserved
E: UPC-E
F: Bookland
G: Code 128
I: SSCC

Note: We used Code 128 (G)

bb – Number of dots (01-12) for narrow bar and narrow space

ccc – Bar height in dots (001-999)

d – SSCC only. Not used for other bar code types
0: No human readable text
1: Human readable at top
2: Human readable at bottom

The very next data will be printed as barcodes.

On the next line, is the same as the other lines. The only difference is the XUSATO command.

XU – Font type. Specifies the 5W x 9L dot matrix font (includes descenders).

Q1 – Print Quantity. Specifies the total number of labels to print. syntax: Qaaaaa

Z – Stop Code. Ends all print jobs.

The code will print one copy of the image below:

The PHP Code

Finally, this is the code for our example:

//open printer
$handle = printer_open(’Printer Name’); //or it could be \\pcname\printername
//set printing option to raw
printer_set_option($handle, PRINTER_MODE, ‘RAW’);

//write data to printer
$esc = chr(27);
$data = ’’;
$data .= $esc . 'A';
$data .= $esc . 'A3H1374V0001';
$data .= $esc . 'H0050' . $esc . 'V0100' . $esc . 'L0303' . $esc . 'XMSATO';
$data .= $esc . 'H0050' . $esc . 'V0200' . $esc . 'B103100*SATO*';
$data .= $esc . 'H0170' . $esc . 'V0310' . $esc . 'L0101' . $esc . 'XUSATO';
$data .= $esc . 'Q1';
$data .= $esc . 'Z';

$ret = printer_write($handle, $data);
//close the printer handle
printer_close($handle);

That’s it!