pbm2lwxl is a device driver for the CoStar Labelwriter XL and
compatible printers. It takes plain (not raw) pbm files.
The PBM file format was popularized by the PBM (aka netbpm, pbmplus, etc)
utilities by Jef Poskanzer. There are utilities to convert from almost
any image format to PBM/PPM/PGM/PNM, and vice versa.
Ghostscript supports pbm output.
This driver was written in the C language for Linux
but should compile on any un*x compatible system as well as many
other operating systems; no operating system specific calls were used.
Writing a PBM filter is an appropriate way to write a printer driver
for a simple raster based printer.
It can run entirely in user space
Integrate with the standard lpr spooling system and ghostscript
rasterizing system
It will work with any version of GNU Ghostscript, Alladin ghostscript, or
Artiflex Ghostscript, without recompiling. And, since the code is
not actually linked with the Ghostscript code, you don't need to worry
about GPL tainting or other licensing issues.
Anything which can be printed with ghostscript (subject to the size/resolution/monchrome/1 bit per pixel restrictions of the device), can be printed on
a label. You can mix multiple sizes of text at various angles, bar codes,
images, etc. And you can do it in a way that is reasonably compatible
with laser and inkjet printers as well.
Anything which can be converted to plain PBM format can be printed
directly (or you can go through pnm2ps, ghostscript, and back to PBM format).
Quick and Easy. It took a couple hours to write the driver and a little
while longer to write documentation.
Portable. The code will compile on any platform.
Ghostscript is the native rasterization system on most operating
systems and can replace and/or work with the native system on almost any other.
It can use existing serial/parallel/usb drivers
Many idiotic companies only write windows drivers for their printers and then
their products only work with microsoft windows, and often not even will all
versions of windows. Write a PBM or ghostscript
driver and your product will work with MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95,
Windows 98, Windows NT, MacOS, OS/2, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD,
4.3BSD, Solaris, Sunos, AIX, HPUX, Irix, Digital Unix, SCO Unix, Ultrix,
VMS, NeXTstep, Amiga, Plan 9, SMS/QDOS.
Copyright 1999 by Mark Whitis. All Rights Reserved.
Availible under this license.
Not GPL tainted.
The labelwriter XL uses 19200. Older models use 9600
I think the avery units are relabeled costar units - they look identical
inside and out
usage
The printer uses xon/xoff - configure spooler appropriately
or use something like: "stty 19200 ixon
usage:
pbm2lwxl [ width [height] ]
width and height are in pixels. width should be 192 (1") or 448
(wide models). You can redirect the output directly to the serial
port the printer is attached assuming you don't already have a spooler
running on that port and you have already set the baud rate and XON/XOFF
flow controls.
scripts
You may need to edit the pathnames to utilities in these scripts.
ps2lwxl Postscript to labelwriter
txt2lwxl text (6 lines x 29 char) to labelwriter
small2lwxl text (12 lines) to labelwriter
You will probably want to use one or more of the following utilities
mpage -1 -o -m720t0lrb -L6 - ascii to postscript
ghostscript -sDEVICE=pbm -sOutputFile=- -q -dNOPAUSE -r192x192 -g700x192 -dSAFER - -c quit
pnmflip -cw - to rotate 90 degrees
pnmnoraw - convert from raw to plain (ascii) pnm format.
Note that the ghostscript command shown above generates 700x192
which should be pnmflip'ed to get 192x700 for printing. Change "-L6" to
"-L12" on the mpage command to fit more lines on a label.
This program does not use libpnm. No particular reason. It was just
faster to write code which read a plain pbm file than to figure out
how to use libpnm and if its licensing was acceptable. libpnm is
more flexible but we really don't need that flexibility here.
lpr
I haven't integrated this with lpr yet. The biggest question is how to
set XON/XOFF. The documentation on fs/fc printcap directives is a bit
vague (to say the least). It is possible I might have to write
a trivial output filter program to do xon/xoff.
fs=IXON?????????:lp=/dev/cua1:br#19200:
Bar Codes
Check out pbmupc, part of the netpbm package, probably already installed on
most Linux boxes.
Other companies
Avery
The avery products look like rebranded costar products. I have
several of the 1" models around and will test them soon.
Seiko
This program will not drive seiko label printers.
For a driver program for seiko printers, check out
slap.
Slap is a rather bloated program which tries to reinvent the wheel
instead of cooperating with the existing rasterizer (ghostscript).
It comes with a bunch of fonts. The result appears to be that
you have a much more complicated program but much less flexibility
in printing labels.
Sony
I know nothing about sony label printers
Dymo
It looks like dymobought costar which
is now called Dymo-Costar.
Don't confuse these printers, however, with the continuous laminated
thermal transfer label tape printers made by Brother and Casio, some of
which were rebranded by Dymo. And certainly don't confuse these with
the even older mechanical embossing printers by Dymo or the old
Kroy mechanical ribbon transfer label makers.
Industrial Bar code printers
I don't have any information at the moment on the industrial strength
bar code printers.
pbm2lwxl is a device driver for the CoStar Labelwriter XL and
compatible printers. It takes plain (not raw) pbm files.
The PBM file format was popularized by the PBM (aka netbpm, pbmplus, etc)
utilities by Jef Poskanzer. There are utilities to convert from almost
any image format to PBM/PPM/PGM/PNM, and vice versa.
Ghostscript supports pbm output.
This driver was written in the C language for Linux
but should compile on any un*x compatible system as well as many
other operating systems; no operating system specific calls were used.
Writing a PBM filter is an appropriate way to write a printer driver
for a simple raster based printer.
It can run entirely in user space
Integrate with the standard lpr spooling system and ghostscript
rasterizing system
It will work with any version of GNU Ghostscript, Alladin ghostscript, or
Artiflex Ghostscript, without recompiling. And, since the code is
not actually linked with the Ghostscript code, you don't need to worry
about GPL tainting or other licensing issues.
Anything which can be printed with ghostscript (subject to the size/resolution/monchrome/1 bit per pixel restrictions of the device), can be printed on
a label. You can mix multiple sizes of text at various angles, bar codes,
images, etc. And you can do it in a way that is reasonably compatible
with laser and inkjet printers as well.
Anything which can be converted to plain PBM format can be printed
directly (or you can go through pnm2ps, ghostscript, and back to PBM format).
Quick and Easy. It took a couple hours to write the driver and a little
while longer to write documentation.
Portable. The code will compile on any platform.
Ghostscript is the native rasterization system on most operating
systems and can replace and/or work with the native system on almost any other.
It can use existing serial/parallel/usb drivers
Many idiotic companies only write windows drivers for their printers and then
their products only work with microsoft windows, and often not even will all
versions of windows. Write a PBM or ghostscript
driver and your product will work with MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95,
Windows 98, Windows NT, MacOS, OS/2, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD,
4.3BSD, Solaris, Sunos, AIX, HPUX, Irix, Digital Unix, SCO Unix, Ultrix,
VMS, NeXTstep, Amiga, Plan 9, SMS/QDOS.
Status
I am currently working on support for multipage postscript files. The latest
version of the driver (probably newer than availible here) supports multiple
PBM files on a single input stream as output by ghostscript. Unfortunately,
pbmflip and pbmnoraw (which are used in the scripts) choke. I am now getting
ghostscript to do the rotation, where desired. The current version works
fine as long as there is only one label per print job.
Nov 1999 Update: Dymo-Costar has sent me several of their printers for testing.
I have tested the Turbo, EL60, and EL40. All work with the appropriate
parameters (see table below).
Device Support
CoStar
LabelWriter II
9600
192?/128?
Should work
CoStar
LabelWriter XL
19200
192
Tested - works
CoStar
LabelWriter XL+
19200
448
Should work
CoStar
EL40
19200
192 1-1/2" wide
Tested. Works.
CoStar
EL60
19200
448 2-1/4" wide
Tested. Works.
CoStar
Turbo
115200
448 2-1/4" wide
Tested, works
CoStar
SE250
115,200
448
Should work
CoStar
SE250+
?
448?
Should work
115.2Kbps
CoStar
ASCII
?
192?
Should work
115.2Kbps
CoStar
ASCII+
?
448
Should work
115.2Kbps
Avery
Personal Label Printer
9600
128
Tested - lower resolution
approx 128x128 dpi
Avery
Personal Label Printer+???
19200
448
Should work
Sieko
any
n/a
n/a
Should NOT work.
See below
Sony
any
n/a
n/a
Unknown
See below
CoStar
LW300
115200
300? 1-1/2" wide
Not tested. Will Propably work.
Has Serial and USB
CoStar
LW330
115200
700? 2-1/4" wide
Not Tested. Will probably work.
Has Serial and USB
CoStar
LW330 Turbo
115200?
700? 2-1/4" wide
Not tested. Will probably work.
Has serial and USB.
Since the Avery unit has lower resolution, there are a few problems.
Random garbage is printed on some lines. This is probably the result
of sending more bytes of data per line than the printer expects. There
is also an offset problem (the last 128 pixels get printed, not the first)
unless you specify a label width of 128 when invoking pbm2lwxl. Effective
label size (standard 1-1/8x3.5" labels) is 128x448 pixels.
These printers do not autobaud; use only the single baud
rate supported by the printer. Use the correct label width or
you probably won't like the results.
Copyright 1999 by Mark Whitis. All Rights Reserved.
Availible under this license.
Not GPL tainted.
Compiling
In the commands below, /dist is the directory on your
system where you download distribution files prior to installation.
Substitute a suitable directory on your system or make /dist
a symbolic link to a directory created for the purpose on a disk partition
with sufficient free space.
cd /dist
wget http://www.freelabs.com/~whitis/software/pbm2lwxl/pbm2lwxl.tar.gz
cd /usr/local/src
mkdir pbm2lwxl
cd pbm2lwxl
tar zxvf /dist/pbm21wxl.tar.gz
make
make install
"make install" does not make any attempt to integrate with the
printing system on your system.
usage
The labelwriter XL uses 19200. Older models use 9600
The printer uses xon/xoff - configure spooler appropriately
or use something like: "stty 19200 ixon -onlcr
usage:
pbm2lwxl [ width [height] ]
For example:
# Make sure you specify the correct baud rate for your printer model
stty 19200 ixon -onlcr /dev/cua1
width and height are in pixels. width should be 192 (1") or 448
(wide models). You can redirect the output directly to the serial
port the printer is attached assuming you don't already have a spooler
running on that port and you have already set the baud rate and XON/XOFF
flow controls.
Obviously, you need to redirect a PBM file into the standard input
of the program.
scripts
You may need to edit the pathnames to the pbm2lwxl utility in these scripts.
Since lpd does not establish a reasonable path, I hardcoded the pathnames
to /usr/local/bin/.
ps2lwxl Postscript to labelwriter
The script "ps2lwxl" takes a postscript file on standard input and
outputs commands to a lwxl. You will need to edit it with the
appropriate parameters for your printer/system.
# Make sure you specify the correct baud rate for your printer model
stty 19200 ixon -onlcr /dev/cua1
As supplied, the script performs rotation of the image using pnmflip.
Unfortunately, that does not allow more than one "page" (label) to
be printed at a time. A better approach is to remove the pnmflip
and do the rotation in postscript by configuring your application
program appropriately, or by using the landscap.ps file or
incorporating it into the ps2lwxl script (put the full pathname
before the " - " in the ghostscript command.
You will probably want to use one or more of the following utilities
mpage -1 -o -m720t0lrb -L6 - ascii to postscript
ghostscript -sDEVICE=pbm -sOutputFile=- -q -dNOPAUSE -r192x192 -g700x192 -dSAFER - -c quit
pnmflip -cw - to rotate 90 degrees
pnmnoraw - convert from raw to plain (ascii) pnm format.
Note that the ghostscript command shown above generates 700x192
which should be pnmflip'ed to get 192x700 for printing. Change "-L6" to
"-L12" on the mpage command to fit more lines on a label.
This program does not use libpnm. No particular reason. It was just
faster to write code which read a plain pbm file than to figure out
how to use libpnm and if its licensing was acceptable. libpnm is
more flexible but we really don't need that flexibility here.
lpr
Apparently, lpd recognizes XON/XOFF on serial ports. This is good
since there does not appear to be a way to configure that (the
fs printcap directive seems inadequate). So, here is a sample
configuration for text.
Check out pbmupc, part of the netpbm package, probably already installed on
most Linux boxes.
Other companies
Avery
The avery
units are relabeled older costar units
(I suspect the labelwriter II) - they look identical
inside and out and the Avery units even say "COSTAR" inside.
The Avery Personal label printer prints at 1" per second, according
to the meager specifications.
Seiko
This program will not drive seiko label printers.
For a driver program for seiko printers, check out
slap.
Slap is a rather bloated program which tries to reinvent the wheel
instead of cooperating with the existing rasterizer (ghostscript).
It comes with a bunch of fonts. The result appears to be that
you have a much more complicated program but much less flexibility
in printing labels.
Sony
I know nothing about sony label printers
Dymo
It looks like dymobought costar which
is now called Dymo-Costar.
Don't confuse these printers, however, with the continuous laminated
thermal transfer label tape printers made by Brother and Casio, some of
which were rebranded by Dymo. And certainly don't confuse these with
the even older mechanical embossing printers by Dymo or the old
Kroy mechanical ribbon transfer label makers.
Industrial Bar code printers
I don't have any information at the moment on the industrial strength
bar code printers.
Innards
The following was from an Avery Personal Label Printer
One of the most common problems you will have with these label printers
is that a postscript page is laid out so that the text prints at the
top of a normal 8-1/2x11 page and the area which is rendered into the
bitmap is a small rectangle in the lower left corner. Even if you
only print 6 lines on the page, they will typically be at the top.
The lower left hand corner is used as an origin (this makes better
mathematical sense but printers and monitors work the other way) rather
than the top left which causes unexpected things to happen when printing
other paper sizes. This is why the funny margin options are used with
mpage above.
It might be helpful to define new paper sizes in gs_stad.ps.
mpage would probably need to be updated. mpage would benifit from
a page definition database which specified where each little page
went on the page. This would be useful for all sorts of laser and
inkjet printer labels.
Compression
The LableWriter XL supports a form of RLE image compression. I don't
know if the older printers support this. The driver uses the
raw, uncompressed, image data format. On some models, the serial port
might slow down the printing with uncompressed data.
Applications
Media labels
office label printer pool - one label printer with each size
label running of a multiport serial card on a linux server can serve
every machine on the net. The inexpensive 8 port cards from
Byterunner are appropriate for this application.
Inexpensive point of sale receipt printer. A bank of inexpensive
interchangable label printers can serve to print receipts, tickets,
barcode and price labels, etc. (see comments on adding machine paper
under Label Stock)
Bar code labels
Shipping labels
Temporary Name Badges for visitors or others
Ticket printer (use name badge or custom stock).
Debugging
Set the variable debug to 1 in pbm2lwxl.c (or set it using gdb).
Continuous paper
Thermal adding machine paper can be used instead of labels. You will need
to send a label length of -1 to the printer to disable the hole sensor;
if the second argument to pbm2lwxl is a
Cheap thermal paper can be handy for testing purposes or for applications
such as a cheap point of sale receipt printer (using the wide model,
preferably), cheap tape over shipping labels, etc. For line by line
printing applications, you may want to use pbmtext instead of
ghostscript and disable the formfeed command in the software.
pnmcrop is handy with pnmtext to trim the excessive border produced
by pnmtext.
Look at the script "fontdemo" for a sample of receipt style printing.
Label stock
Labels are availible from avery and costar, among others. Labels
are availible in a variety of sizes.
EIMINC can
make
custom labels specifically for barcoding;
they claim these labels are more durable and are IR scanable. They
also sell tamper evident labels but I don't think they work in thermal
label printers.
Fonts
This driver does not need any fonts or do any font handling; use whatever
fonts are availible for postscript or pbmtext. As a convenience to users
of pbmtext, an X windows font grabbing utility (grabfont),
a demonstration of how to use them in receipt printing mode
(fontdemo) are included.
Not worth the trouble fixing the printtool. Just create the queue
entry in /etc/printcap and input filter manually and keep a backoup copy
of printcap incase printtool clobbers it.
It would involve a bit of work to extend the redhat printtool/printfilters
to handle label printers.
The redhat print tool needs to be extended to understand the concept
of one or more postprocessors after ghostscript. Additional fields should be
added to their printer database /usr/lib/rhs/rhs-printfilters/printerdb.
Printfilters should be added to convert ps-to-pbm and then pbm-to-printer.
redhat does understand the idea of a final filter that actually sends
the data directly to the printer (smbprint), etc. although that is all
hard coded into the main filter script.
The redhat print filters also seem to have a problem in that if they
are starting from ascii they will apparently invoke asc-to-printer;
it is not a valid assumption these days that the printer can handle ascii.
They seem to make the mistake in assuming that any of the *-to-printer.fpi
filters can actually be used. It bypasses its own "DESIRED_TO" format.
Redhat 7.1
###
### dymo label printer
###
wget ftp://speakeasy.rpmfind.net/linux/redhat/7.1/en/os/i386/SRPMS//printconf-0.2.12-1.src.rpm
rpm -i printconf-0.2.12-1.src.rpm
rpm -ba /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/printconf.spec
cd /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/printconf-0.2.12/src
echo pbm2lwxl >>redhat_gs_driver_list
python util/build_striped_printer_db.py foomatic/data japanese printer_db.pickle redhat_gs_driver_list
patch printconf-gui <<\...EOF...
--- printconf-gui.orig Wed Mar 28 11:51:22 2001
+++ printconf-gui Wed Jul 18 03:22:20 2001
@@ -278,6 +278,12 @@
# This being a printing system, it's probably a good idea to go and see if there are any printers attached locally.
# There are much more intelligent approaches to this problem, but the rest of the system isn't sophisticated enough
# to care yet, so simply scaning likely devices to see if they can be opened for writing is sufficient.
+
+# Added serial ports which are needed to support Avery, Dymo, and Costar
+# label printers, among others. And yes, we definitely need more than
+# for serial ports here. My label printers are attached to
+# a byterunner 8 port board with ports from ttyS16-ttyS23
+# - Mark Whitis <whitis@freelabs.com>
local_printers = []
for devlpx in [ '/dev/lp0',
'/dev/lp1',
@@ -286,7 +292,40 @@
'/dev/usb/lp0',
'/dev/usb/lp1',
'/dev/usb/lp2',
- '/dev/usb/lp3']:
+ '/dev/usb/lp3',
+ '/dev/ttyS0',
+ '/dev/ttyS1',
+ '/dev/ttyS2',
+ '/dev/ttyS3',
+ '/dev/ttyS4',
+ '/dev/ttyS5',
+ '/dev/ttyS6',
+ '/dev/ttyS7',
+ '/dev/ttyS8',
+ '/dev/ttyS9',
+ '/dev/ttyS10',
+ '/dev/ttyS11',
+ '/dev/ttyS12',
+ '/dev/ttyS13',
+ '/dev/ttyS14',
+ '/dev/ttyS15',
+ '/dev/ttyS16',
+ '/dev/ttyS17',
+ '/dev/ttyS18',
+ '/dev/ttyS19',
+ '/dev/ttyS20',
+ '/dev/ttyS21',
+ '/dev/ttyS22',
+ '/dev/ttyS23',
+ '/dev/ttyS24',
+ '/dev/ttyS25',
+ '/dev/ttyS26',
+ '/dev/ttyS27',
+ '/dev/ttyS28',
+ '/dev/ttyS29',
+ '/dev/ttyS30',
+ '/dev/ttyS31'
+ ]:
try:
os.close (os.open (devlpx, os.O_WRONLY | os.O_NONBLOCK))
local_printers.append({'device':devlpx})
...EOF...
# chown lp /dev/ttyS16
# buggy cp, can't overide -i with -f
yes | cp printer_db.pickle /usr/share/printconf/printer_db.pickle
yes | cp printconf-gui /usr/sbin/printconf-gui
printconf-gui &
# Interactive, GUI
# after configuring printer in printconf-gui, add :br#19200: in /etc/printcap
# (which will unfortunately be erased next time printconf-gui runs)
emacs /var/spool/lpd/lbltst/pbm2lwxl-126082.foo
# change
# "| pnmflip -cw | pnmnoraw | pbm2lwxl"
# to
# "| pbm2lwxl 448 1500"
# which defines a lable size of 2.125x8" (the length will be truncated
# based on how many lines ghostscript outputs)
# note this will give non-rotated output. If you want rotated output
# you will need to reverse the width and height in all label
# size definitions, put the pnmflip and pnmnoraw commands back, and
# remember to add the options to pbm2lwxl. Better yet, figure out
# how to get portrait/landscape printing options to ghostscript
# once it is working, you may want to move from /etc/printcap
# to /etc/printcap.local so printconf won't hurt it.
Company Involvement
This driver was written using a document (Lwxlprog.txt) downloaded
from costar's web site. Programming documents, SDKs,
etc are at their
Developers Libary
including the
LWXL programming Document
. Costar sent me several models of printers for testing purposes.
Tim Kissane at CoStar
runs Linux at home and has gotten some other people inside the
company working Linux.
Common Problems
If the last half of the line seems garbled on 7x14 and 7x13 fonts in
fontdemo, you are probably being bitten by newline translation.
Try "stty -onlcr <$device".
If XON/XOFF flow control is not working, garbage may be printed.
If you have any funny settings for xterm in your xdefaults, this will
affect grabfont.
Bugs
No bugs have been reported.
Other Operating Systems
This should port easily to many operating systems.
Unix Compatible
This software should port easily to any unix compatible operating system,
including FreeBDS, Solaris, SunOS, AIX, etc. The most likely change needed,
if any, is to change which include files are used.
Microsoft Windows, any version, or DOS
DO NOT send me requests for assistance with any version of microsoft
windows, with the possible exception of serious porting efforts.
Dymo no longer supports the older printer models. If you are
looking for a windows driver,
look here
or do an intelligent search on google. Remember to run a virus checker.
If you have programming experience,
you can try porting this driver or using dymo-costars windows SDK. But don't
bother me me windows end user questions.
This program should port easily to DOS or the dos box on windows. The
challange is how to get the output of this program to a serial port.
On a pure dos box, you may need a library which supports interrupt
driven I/O although simple redirection of standard output to COM1: may
work (with appropriate MODE settings for buad rate, no translation, and
XON/XOFF) since the data flow is output only except for XON/XOFF.
On a dos window in windows, this may already be handled
for you by windows if you open COMx:. Don't forget to enable XON/XOFF
and disable any translation.
Have I made it perfectly clear that I do not provide tech support for
windoze users?
All email messages received must pass the
turing test or they will be considered SPAM. If it could have been written
by a machine, it was.
Under no circumstances are you to email me with questions regarding windoze,
any other microsoft operating system or application, or any software which
runs under any form of windoze.
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