Raster to QL-570

What is this?

A CUPS driver for printing labels on the QL-570. This can also be used to directly drive the printer (see example below).

Motivation

I had some issues with the driver from the vendor. I figured that I need to have some clue about what is going on in order to do something about that. I ended up writing a driver, oops.

What is the relation to ptouch-driver?

As far as I understand, ptouch-driver is based on the reverse engineered protocol. The rastertoql570 is based on the protocol specification (much) later released by the vendor. The ptouch-driver is far more complete with regards to the surroundings, methinks.

Documentation

The files generated by Doxygen can be viewed here:

http://static.xenoworld.de/docs/rastertoql570

What works?

Media types

I use the printer mainly with 62mm continuous tape.

| media type | works | |------------|-------| | 62mm | ✔ | | 29x90.3mm | ✗ ❶ |

❶ Tried this only briefly, the output was not as expected. I will investigate further, but I suppose that the problems are on the user side of things.

Features

These work in principle, some of these are not yet configurable.

• Automatic cutting after each label
• Automatic cutting after every n labels
• 300dpi and 600dpi printing

How do I use this?

Everything is a bit crude right now. First, you need GCC and the CUPS development libraries (the package might be called cups-devel or something similar). The driver needs the libraries cups and cupsimage. Run make in the src/ directory.

After building the driver, you end up with a file rastertoql570 (in the project's root directory), you have to put this file in the CUPS filters directory, (e.g. /usr/lib/cups/filter/). After that you can just click through the CUPS printer installation with your favourite tool or through the interface at http://localhost:631/. When you reach the step to provide a PPD-file, use the ppd-file.ppd in the project's root directory.

It should now be possible to print labels. Be aware that, regardless of the tool, you should create a custom document with the dimensions you want. If you use, for example, gLabels, create a 12.7mm by 62mm label and include some 1mm margins. If you want to print smaller labels, try with a 6.35mm x 62mm label, but remember to set the resolution to 600DPI in that case.

How do I use the provided files to directly drive the printer?

This assumes that, if you connect the printer to your computer via USB, some magic configures it as a printer and provides you with a device such as /dev/usb/lp0. On two of my machines that ‘just worked’™. Given the right permissions you can simply open this file and write to it.

Printing a couple of black lines is as simple as this:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~{.c}

include "ql570.h"

int main() { FILE *device = fopen("/dev/usb/lp0", "wb"); ql_status status = {0}; ql_print_info print_info = { .raster_number[0] = 150 }; uint8_t buffer[90];

ql_init(false, device);
ql_status_request(device);
ql_status_read(&status, device);
ql_page_start(&print_info, device);
ql_set_extended_options(true, false, device);

for (int i = 0; i < 150; i++) {
    memset(buffer, i % 5 == 0 ? 0xFF : 0x00, 90);
    buffer[0] = 0x00;
    buffer[1] = 0x00;
    ql_raster(90, buffer, device);
}

ql_raster_end(90, device);
ql_page_end(true, device);
fclose(device);

} ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The fully commented example can be found in src/examples/minimal.c.

If you need some quick and dirty way to print something meaningful on a label, use GIMP to create a 720x150 pixel image and export it later as XBM. These are simple C files, the structure is pretty self-explanatory.

TODO: Provide example for this, include how to mirror the images...

Stuff to be done

• Tell the vendor about unclear or wrong information in the specification.
• Test with other media types.
• Try to support other printers in the QL series.
• Maybe use CMake.
• Improve overview document.
• There are a couple of nanosleep-calls and the 100ms or so waiting time are completely arbitrary.
• Currently arguments to the program are ignored. Ideally a help should be printed, and some parameters should be used.
• Handle SIGTERM.
• Walk through TODOs in the code.
• Improve documentation with regards to optional features.
• Show some care for endianess.
• Improve the PPD-file, this hasn't received much love.