Gentlemen;

I've been scouring the web & groups & forums afar for better info on this printer. I am trying to control the formatting via either embedded strings or via the lp -o options, both with no success. I am still working on it with any/all documentation I can scrounge up.

So, if ANYONE has been able to successfully output to this type of printer family on a Linux/Unix system, please SHARE your methods? BTW - my printer model is the LW400 with USB interface.

If I am successful I will post my methods as well.

Thanks.

CUPS ships with a driver for Dymo LavelWriters. Have you tried it already?

Till

OpenPrinting Manager
OpenPrinting (linuxprinting.org) Forum and web site administrator

Oh Yeah! Both the cups supplied AND the "beta" from Dymo directly. I can GET output to the printer. Its just not acceptable formatting and no matter what techniques I seem to try either don't pass through (seemingly) or do something else.

An alternative is the "pbm2lwxl" driver. Does this one work better for you? Use the PPD file for the model which is most similar to your printer. Post here how you got your printer working best.

Till

OpenPrinting Manager
OpenPrinting (linuxprinting.org) Forum and web site administrator

Well, here's the scheme:

I have a php program which collects the information to go on the label and it opens a pipe to "lp" followed by fwrite's to the stream. Upon completion the pipe is closed.

As I am not at the office now I'll provide the code to the best of my recollection:

$OFH=popen("|lp -h hostname -d printername -s \
-o landscape \
-o PageSize=30326_Video_Top \
-o Font=17cpi \
", "w");

/* here's where I (can) send setup and formating sequences in hex */
fwrite($OFH,"\x1b\x4a\x04");

/* Now - Output one or more text lines */
fwrite($OFH,"Name: ".$_Name."\n");
fwrite($OFH,"Phone: ".$_Phone."\n");
.
- more of the same -
.
/* Now - flush the printer's buffer */
fwrite($OFH,"\x1b\x45");

/* And finally close the pipe */
pclose($OFH);
exit;

So, as a printing "mechanism" I think its working. As for the ability to properly format it, it's NOT working.

I've downloaded three different documents from Dymo on the programming codes for this series of printer and tries many of the listed sequences. None seem to work.

Today, I actually installed the Dymo supplied programs on WinXP and setup a label and held the spooler. Then from my Linux side I was able to access the actual \windows\system32\spool\PRINTERS\FP....SPL file and hex dump it. While I could read the text I expected, none of the control sequences matched anything in the Dymo manuals. So I don't know if windoze does anything extra with them.

Also, with regards to outputting to this printer... I tried PPD's for Dymo and also "raw" and "none" to see if the ppd was filtering anything. Same results.

This is getting EXTREMELY frustrating for what should be a simple issue.

I am looking for anyone else who may have one of these printers who would like to collaborate in an attempt to come up with a working mechanism. Then we can contribute it to the OS repositories.

Any other ideas you can provide or suggestions as to where to find a collaborator would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Bob M

Dear gentlemen,

I have the same problem with my Dymo Labelwriter 400.
I'm receiving an output, but I cant get the format managed correctly.

You have spoken of a BETA driver from Dymo. I called Dymo, if they had a linux supply, but the answer was NO.
Can you give an advise, where to get this BETA driver ?

Or any hint, who to correct the format of the output ?

Thanks in advance,
kind regards
Andrew

I recently bought a LabelWriter 400. It can work perfectly with Linux (at least on the two distribution I tested), one just have to avoid some traps.

First, don't use the system printing configuration tool. Use [localhost:631], which is the intended way to configure CUPS. Both on Redhat Enterprise Linux 4 (RHEL4) and Fedora 6 the LabelWriter 400 is available there. On RHEL4, the default printer configuration tool brought me nowhere.

CUPS is using two mechanisms to print to the LabelWriter. If you do a "locate dymo" you will find a PPD-file "dymo.ppd.gz" that CUPS reads. This file again points to a CUPS-filter "rastertolabel". When I do "locate rastertolabel" I can see that I indeed have this filter on my disk. This filter translates generic bitmap-information into something that the LabelWriter will understand.

In the PPD-file the LabelWriter is listed as a PostScript-printer. So make sure you feed PostScript to it. CUPS will use the ghostscript-program to convert PostScript into rasterinformation. If you send text, obviously the formatting won't be pretty because CUPS will have to apply some default formatting.

I first tried to generate PostScript using OpenOffice Draw. I have used this program alot and at least to me it's a very nice program to create illustrations in. But there is some confusion as to whether the page orientation of the LabelWriter is portrait or landscape. To make things work, I measured the label-sticker using a ruler and entered the values at Format->Page . I selected landscape. On my screen I got a small page that looked like the label. The longest side was horisontal on my screen. But in File->Printersettings->Properties I changed the setting from landscape to portrait before printing. Without this last trick, the image was cut off at the left.

The reason I want to use the LabelWriter under Linux is that I like to automize
things. I want labels to be automatically printed and I want to change some of the text on the label from a script. I.e. I wan't to create a template-label once and for all and then just change some of the text each time I print. Since the OpenOffice Draw seems to send bitmap data concealed as PostScript, it was difficult to edit the PostScript-file to change the text. So I've ended up using tgif instead. This is actually a cute program. It saves in a text-format that is easy to edit from a script. It also writes readable PostScript-code that could be edited directly.

So I can now do something like this:

a) one time for all, create the label graphics using tgif, save to file.obj
b) each time I want to print a label my script can do something like this:

cat file.obj | sed 's/TEMPLATETEXT/$actualtext/' > file1.obj
tgif -print -ps -stdout filel.obj > label.ps
lpr -Pdymo label.ps

The labels look nice. I can use pictures or whatever in my templates, no problem.

Hi leiv,

can you go into more details, please.

I followed your posting with strong interest, but cannot bring my Dymo to work under Debian.

I installed Fedora6 in a VirtualBox with no USB support, in order to get the dymo.ppd.gz and the raster-file, which was no problem.

I copied the files under Debian into the correct location and tried to install the Dymo with the Cups-Wizard, which did not work. The installer found the correct Dymo-file, installed the printer correctly, but a test-printing-page did not come out.

I know, that you wrote, the wizard is not the correct way to install it, but I cannot follow your instructions.

So perhaps you read this and can write a follow-up with more details for installation etc.
I also like to automize things and need this labelwriter, so I would appreciate your help very much.

In the meantime, I try to install Fedora6 on a free diskdrive, in order to try the installation with correct usb-support.

Hope to hear from you soon,

kind regards
Andreas

Hi

I am also having this problem. I have a Dymo Labelwriter 400 Turbo and a Dymo Labelwriter 330 Turbo. When it prints parts of the top and parts of the bottom are cut off. It is really weird. I am using the Dymo cups v1.2 driver. Any help would be much appreciated!

The dymo driver is really wierd. It scales an 8 1/2 x 11 page down to the label size - so that the test page prints on a Shipping label with the right side cut off a little.

When printing a postscript document, you have to scale it by about 2.7 x 2 for it to print correctly.

The driver does something funky with finding the leading edge of a label. If you print landscape labels rotated 90 degrees, they all print fine. If you print landscape labels rotated -90 degrees instead (so that they have the proper orientation for viewing in order on the strip), the first prints fine, but subsequent labels are moved up and print over the label separators. Despite each label having its own showpage!

Forgot to mention, the -90 rotated landscape labels display correctly in gs or gv or on a ps printer (but filling an entire 8 1/2 x 11 page of course).

Hmm that is interesting. I am trying to set that up in CUPS. I have CUPS version 1.2.8 installed. I am using Ubuntu 7.04. I do not see where I can do the scaling in the CUPS interface. What I am really trying to do is set the Dymo up as a share and have other computers in the office print to it. The Dymo is hooked to a Windows XP machine (I am not sure this has anything to do with it.) All the computers can print to it, but it prints like I mentioned above. I am ready to pull my hair out! lol I do appreciate the help Mr. Gathman. I will look at some other things.

I forgot to add, that before we started using Ubuntu 7.04. We were using Suse 10.2 and the printing and formatting worked great. When we moved to Ubuntu, is when the printout started cutting off at the top and bottom. Only difference between the 2 that I could see was Suse was using CUPS 1.2.7 and Ubuntu is using CUPS 1.2.8.

I was using a Dymo Labelwriter 330 Turbo without problems in OpenSUSE 10.2 + CUPS. I could type a text (address) label in something like Kate and then print OK. We switched to Mandriva Spring and that's when we started having many of the problems you have been talking about here (rotation of text, cutting off of labels, ...)

After much fiddling, we have something that seems to work for us now.
We selected the Dymo Labelwriter in CUPS, not the Dymo-Costar.
We set up a "custom page" in OpenOffice to match our label size (1.4 inches x 3.5 inches) and used top & bottom margins of 0.2 cm and left & right margins of 0.5 cm.

If we print from OO directly, it still acts "funny". But if we "Print Preview" in OO, and print from within the print preview, the label seems to come out OK. We need to check that the Print Preview Printing Options are set up for Landscape & then check that the Dymo is also set for Landscape. For some reason which we haven't figured out yet, it seems to sometimes forget. We haven't tried printing images or barcodes on the Dymo, so I can't comment on how that would work. But text labels are working.

I hope this is helpful.

I've finally got this working using text2ps. Here is a template.ps that I send to the printer (the dymo is attached to a windows box and I'm using cups & smb). This prints fine on a 1"x1" label, replace the stuff inside the () and you're all set.

%!PS-Adobe-3.0
/p
{ 0.0 coffset sub 0 translate
/temp coffset def
/coffset noffset def
/noffset temp def
coffset 0 translate
copypage erasepage newpath 0 pgtop moveto
} def
/n
{ spacing 0 3 -1 roll ashow
0 linepitch rmoveto
/y currentpoint exch pop def
y 0 lt
{ p }
{ 0 y moveto } ifelse
} def
/r
{ spacing 0 3 -1 roll ashow
/y currentpoint exch pop def
0 y moveto
} def
/Courier-Bold findfont 22.0 scalefont setfont
/linepitch -24.0 def
/spacing 0.0 def
/coffset 4.0 def
/noffset 4.0 def
clippath pathbbox
/pgtop exch def
pop /y exch def y translate
/pgtop pgtop y sub 0.0 sub linepitch add def
coffset 0 translate
newpath 0 pgtop moveto
(HOSTNAME) n
(IPADDRESS) n
(SERIALNUMBER) n
(SYSNO) n
(PANELPORT) n
(SWITCHPORT) n
(KVM) n
() n p
end
%%EOF

Thanks for the help and suggestions Ted and How. I will try them here hopefully sometime today. I just find it kind of odd that under SUSE 10.2 they will print correctly, and under other distributions they will print all messed up..

Just wanted to say thanks to all involved in this thread. Going to the postscript route using perl-Postscript-Simple saved my a$$ at work. :)

OK; I got the 400 Turbo to work using a combo of tips from this forum. Thanks to all who posted hints and solutions! Here's a step-by-step. Enjoy!

System: Home built w/ ECS P4M800-M7 MOBO, and Intel P4 2.8GHz processor.
OS: Xandros 4.1 Professional (Debian 2.6.18)
Labelwriter: DYMO Labelwriter 400 Turbo, USB

1.In a browser, open CUPS using localhost:631 as the URL.
The CUPS Administrator name is “root” and the P/W is your administrator P/W
(whatever you use to gain Super User or Root access on your system).

2.In CUPS click on “Manage Printers,” then in the next screen click “Add Printer.”
(“Add Printer” is hidden at the lower left of the screen)

3.Fill in the required information, then click Continue.
Name must be <= 127 characters, no spaces.
Location = your choice
Description is the short name that will appear in the printers dialog box.
My choices:
Name: DYMO_Labelwriter_400_Turbo
Location: Local USB Port
Description: DYMO 400

4.Select the Device: “USB Printer #1” and click Continue.

5.Select the Make: “DYMO” and click Continue.

6.Select the Model: DYMO Label Printer CUPS v1.1(en) and click Continue.

7.If everything went smoothly you'll get a screen that says “Printer Added Successfully.” Click on the link to the printer to go to the Printer Administration page.

8.Select “Configure Printer” and on that page review/change the defaults to meet your needs.

That's all folks... The DYMO will now be available in the printer selection dialog box in all your applications.

To make/print labels you'll need to do a little tinkering but it's not hard. Here's the step-by-step using OpenOffice 2.0.3 (Writer).

1.Open Writer (a blank page in the default style opens automatically).

2.Click Format > Page > Page.

3.Under “Paper Format” select “Landscape,” then change the Height and Width of the page to the dimensions of your labels. I'm using small return address labels so I started with 1.5” X 3.5”.

4.Under “Margins” change all to 0.25” and click OK. The new page will shrink to the new dimensions, approximately. Put some text in your new “label” then try printing.

5.To print just press CTRL + P to bring up the dialog box. Select the DYMO printer, then in the “Properties” dialog select “Landscape.” (Hint... You may have to do this each time you print,)

6.If your label prints correctly, you're done. Just SAVE your file AS an OOo.org template ( <filename>.ott) so you can recall it later.

7.If the formatting is off you may have to make adjustments. Open the page format dialog and adjust the page dimensions and/or the margins until the printed text matches the on-screen view.

Good Luck. And if you find a tweak or different solution, please post it here.

ATB, Roy

The PPD file that comes with CUPS doesn't seem to support the continuous paper that Dymo sells for use in these printers (their product code for the paper is 30270).

The paper is 62mm wide and 91m long (2 7/16" x 300') - the idea is that you just print as much or as little to the paper you need and then tear it off, effectively turning the LabelWriter 400 into a receipt printer.

I'm really new to CUPS but I tried adding a few lines to the Dymo.ppd file that ships with CUPS to specify a new paper size so I can use this paper but if I select the paper size I selected and try to print the jobs just sit in the queue, I suspect I've done something wrong.

Could a CUPS guru take a look at the PPD file and tell me what lines I need to add to use the continuous paper?

I've uploaded the changes I tried to use (but didn't work) to [pastebin.com] if anyone wants to see where I went wrong

Bravo Roy! Thank you!

I got the LW400 installed to Ubuntu 7.10 with no problems but the current Cups-driver apparently rasterizes even vector-based PDFs (barcode labels generated with Apache FOP) so that the barcodes become unreadable (because of the "antialiasing" effect which probably is caused by the rasterizing) even when the same line width printed from Dymo Label in OS X produces razor sharp result. The same PDF printed to a laserprinter by Cups is also producing great result so the problem is in the current Cups-driver for the Labelwriters.

Dymo's SDK FAQ stated that they are indeed developing their own Cups-based driver (altough the PDF seems to be created in 2005):

"Currently, no SDK is available for Linux or UNIX. DYMO is in the process of developing fully supported LabelWriter printer drivers for LINUX. These CUPS-based drivers should be released in the near future."

I emailed them to ask about the current status of those drivers. For now I think that in order to generate barcodes good enough to be used in our warehouse, I need to print them with either Windows or OS X.

We are trying to print via IPP using cups on OpenSUSE 11. It is working, but I need to insert formfeed/page breaks at certain places on the label. The server saves information to a .txt file and sends that file to the printer from our website to our local print server. That all works. When I add a \n to the end of a block of text, the next text prints on a new line.

But When I use \f, the printer just prints "\f" as a literal object instead of a command. Am I missing something?

Working with a Dymo 400 Turbo

Got a response back from Dymo and they seemed to think it was a problem with CUPS not converting the \f in the test to raster conversion process.

Hi all,

I have a small problem. I am trying to print to a printer using a CUPS PPD on opensuse10.2. The problem is that i am using Accounting on the printer and the ppd does not mentio anything about accouting. If i modify the PPD and insert the accounting details in the ppd it works fine but i will have do create one queue to each diferent user to account.

Is this the only solution or can i create some kind ofpop up box where i an insert the account id and he pw to send to the printer..
if so how do i do it?

thanks
Rui

DRAYVER STAR J120

If you are trying to format your label, use Glabels. I have my LabelWriter 400 hooked up on Debian (Lenny) and it works fine from my Windows machines as a shared printer, and also from the Linux box using Glabels. Just create a new template for your label size, and you should be ready to go. I could not find any pre-designed templates, but the template designer is simple and easy to use. Hope this helps solve your dilemna. I think you can use Glabels from the command line as well so you should be able to access your template and still use your script fine, however I have not tried that.

Found a perfect driver at [download.dymo.com]

Have fun,

Paul Schoonderwoerd
Pollux IT