Using Esc/Pos for printing purposes

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I'm writing a program at the moment. It's a Kitchen Video Screen.

The software I'm dealing with has the ability to either print via a windows printer driver, or directly via sending escpos commands.

Using the windows print driver, while much easier, isn't as flexible as I need to be able to cipher through the information to give different font properties to certain sections of the print job. (EG I need products to print in large, and I need the products attached to that to print small and in red colour)

So, I'm trying to understand how I can incorporate Escpos within my software
(Also saves me from loading print drivers which is better as it is using less resources)

Escpos is a printing language developed by Epson that allows you to set parameters to the string that's about to be printed, including size, colour.

Could someone give me a hint, this is the next big part of my project, and I'm not to sure where to start.

I'm guessing I need to write a class that has all of the escpos commands, and as a line is read from the incoming port, it would then be encoded as per the class I have created.
My head is saying that I need to write a whole bunch of If statements, but I'm sure there would be a much easier way to do it.

Posted 5-May-14 14:29pm

Mendaharin

Updated 26-Oct-16 13:13pm

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[no name] 5-May-14 20:31pm

Start by reading the documentation, http://content.epson.de/fileadmin/content/files/RSD/downloads/escpos.pdf

Mendaharin 5-May-14 20:45pm

I've got all of that information. I also have the proper escpos commands sheet. I am just not sure on how to receive the string, and then cross reference that string to an encoder. That's the bit I'm a little confused on.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 5-May-14 20:57pm

Why? why?! It will give you non-portable Epson-oriented code. Universal printing is easy enough, why not using it?
—SA

Mendaharin 5-May-14 21:09pm

Many POS systems use escpos, so I want to be able to use the program with multiple POS's
I can see within our software that we can tell the windows driver to print a section in red, but I am not sure how to write my software so when it receives the red command it then prints the string in red within my textbox.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 6-May-14 0:35am

I am not convinced (many system use it, so why you should do? speed? anything else?), but I understand what you are doing.
—SA

SoMad 6-May-14 1:37am

Please check Solution 1 and the comments made by Sergey and myself. If your intention is to do what I have understood from your question, I believe I can help you get started as I have written similar parsers/filters that handle ESC/POS, STAR and other (including various pole display) formats.

I cannot give you all the code as I developed it at my previous job and the POS interface is a premier differentiating feature in the product, but I can help you get started with this task, which has a number of pitfalls.

Soren Madsen

2 solutions

Solution 2

Hi,
I also need to parse ESC-POS files and display them on screen.
Can you please post your code here so I can use it?
I would really appreciate it, thanks!

Posted 26-Oct-16 13:13pm

Abramson uri

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[no name] 26-Oct-16 19:48pm

How is you begging for someone else's code a solution to this already answered question?

Mendaharin 26-Oct-16 20:00pm

Abramson - I had alot of trouble with it, but the software I was working with allowed me to write my own ESC-POS language, I translated hex through to a readable string, and parsed on that - ie: I found the hex value for a string and then my program looked for that string and used boolean values based on if that string was found.

It worked for what I needed.

You're on your own with this one. There is plenty of documentation on epson's ESC-POS, but you would be required to write a library which I did not have the skills to do at the time of this question.

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-05T18:37:00

Solution 1

Instead of using this Epson language directly, why not using Microsoft POS software already written for .NET? Please see:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd125967%28v=winembedded.10%29.aspx[^].

See also:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms828083%28v=winembedded.10%29.aspx[^],
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd143192%28v=winembedded.10%29.aspx[^].

—SA

Posted 5-May-14 18:37pm

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov

Comments

SoMad 6-May-14 0:51am

As I understand it, he wants to "go the other way". I believe he wants to do this:
- Use a 3rd party software that prints out receipts.
- Receive the receipt data in his application.
- Parse the data and display it on a monitor.

Soren Madsen

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 6-May-14 0:54am

Excuse me, why do you thing OP wants that?

I don't understand why "the other way" and "3rd party". Why not Microsoft? I would not answer on anything without understanding of some reasonable motivation of the requirement.

—SA

SoMad 6-May-14 0:59am

Because he writes "The software I'm dealing with has the ability to either print via a windows printer driver, or directly via sending escpos commands." and later "...and as a line is read from the incoming port, it would then be encoded as per the class I have created."

So, I think he wants to receive the data, just as a printer does, remove (or to some extent interpret) the Epson ESC/POS control codes from the data in order to present the data.

Soren Madsen

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 6-May-14 1:19am

That I could see, and that I referred to by saying "instead of using this Epson language directly". It could be some 3rd party library, but, first of all, I understood it as the code possible written by OP. I would see no point. Perhaps OP just was unaware of the MS library on the topic.
—SA

Mendaharin 6-May-14 1:48am

Cheers Sergey and SoMad - I will look at this class. Your correct I had no idea about it :)
SoMad you are correct I want to receive the data exactly like the printer does :)
I've got a lot of reading to do :)

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 6-May-14 2:41am

Great. It means: I'm pretty sure it will help you.
Please don't forget to accept the answer formally (green "Accept" button).
—SA

SoMad 6-May-14 3:26am

Please let us know if you get anywhere with this. Personally, I don't think you can make this work since that class is for sending data, not receiving.
I really hope you can use this or other parts of the library - it did not exist when I started development of our solution and I have not looked closely at it since it is used for developing POS software, whereas we would interface to POS solutions by processing the printed data (and other ways).

Soren Madsen

Mendaharin 6-May-14 23:31pm

SoMad - You're right. I can't use this pos class just yet (It will help for when I want to print to a thermal which will be another function, but later in the programs life)

I think I've gotten a bit ahead of myself and complicated the matter in my head....
I've got our pos software to spit out the word xred/xblk, I'm trying to work out at the moment how to use those "commands" to set the font colour.

I'm guessing I need to read it line by line, then append it to the textbox, which I will look into soon. Works starting to get busy once again...

Since I am a beginner in this, I'm still having a little bit of trouble as to the different ways to deal with strings. But it's a great way to learn this stuff... Strings are a pain in the arse...

SoMad 10-May-14 19:45pm

I did not actually get a notification about your comment, because you accidentally posted it as a comment to Sergey's solution and not to my comment. It is an easy mistake that a lot of people make (including myself at times :) ). I just wanted to let you know why I had not responded to you comment. Oh, and then there was my car accident[^].

Anyway, let me know if you need some help and I will see what I can do. My code is actually written in C++ and the last time I worked in VB, they had not created VB.NET yet.
Still, it should be possible to figure out how to get you going. And you are right, there will be a lot of string handling involved.

Soren Madsen

Using Esc/Pos for printing purposes

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Using Esc/Pos for printing purposes

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