POSGuys How To: Print To A Zebra Printer From Android

Hi, Travis from POSGuys.com. Today we’re going to go over printing in Android,
either using desktop printers or mobile printers, using Bluetooth or WiFi. It’s the same set of tools for doing either
one, and you can either pair from a mobile device like a phone to a Bluetooth printer,
or you can print to the desktop printer. Just doing a quick demo here, using the Zebra
app. And it’s going to send a basic label to the
desktop printer. I’m also going to send an image from my Unitech
tablet here to the Zebra printer. So step one is to download the correct utility. With the current version of Android, you’re
going to want Zebra Printer Setup Utility. There’s a few legacy programs that are out
there, they don’t work very well, it appears that all the things that you need to connect
are in there, but there’s just a really tough time connecting with the printers, so I don’t
recommend using those. Use the Zebra Printer Setup Utility if you
have the current version. If you have a slightly older version of the
OS, there is another utility out there, it is called the Zebra Printer Connect, so that
one works for like things running Jellybean, really old versions of Android. Other than that, none of the Zebra print utilities
really are worth using. So once you have it installed, you open it,
and you can connect to your printer. So if you’ve connected them before, they’ll
show up in the side here. It’ll say like Recently Connected printers. You can select it and then your printer will
show up. You can also use NFC if you haven’t paired
with it before, or if you have made a connection, if you have made a connection then when you touch it, then it’ll attempt to re-pair with that printer or pair for the first time with the printer. When you pair for the first time, you’ll have
to do a pairing with a code. The printer will spit out a pairing code,
and then you have to put that number into your phone, and then you’ll be paired after
that, and you can use the touch to connect when you come into range. If you want to switch to a different printer,
you can either select it down from the list, or if it is pre paired, then you can just
touch that printer instead. So you just kind of tap the printer that you
want to print. Once you’re connected, under the printer actions
or available files, they have a few different things, but if you have a format that you
already have created, you can go ahead and send that to the printer, and once it receives
the file, it’ll print it out. So it’s a very basic, rudimentary way of printing
it, the label that I’m printing out, I made in Zebra Z-Designer, it’s a free program that
comes with any Zebra printer, so you can design your labels in Zebra Z-Designer, and then
when you print, you go to save to file, save that file on to your Android device, and then
you can just print that label over and over again using your Android device. One hiccup on it is you can only print one
label at a time, so it’s kind of an as needed thing. Printer to the phone via NFC should pair them
together. There it goes, it’s finding the printer now. And it takes a moment when you pair for the
first time, it’s going to display a print code on the little window in the printer,
and if that happens, you just have to verify that the code is correct. So there you can see on my screen that I went
ahead and switched over to the ZQ520. If I then want to switch back to the ZD410,
all I have to do is tap it and then do the same process. I’m going to print the exact same label on
the ZQ520 as the ZD410, it’s in the available files, so I’ll go down to that test label
once again, and I’ll send it to the printer, and I’ll print that same label that was designed
for the ZD410 on the ZQ520, and there you go, you can see that the two labels are there next to each other, and they look fairly similar. The labels themselves are slightly different
sizes, but they basically fit. So that’s kind of the basics for Android printing
to a Zebra printer. The touch to connect is kind of a nice feature,
it’s not necessary if you just do a standard Bluetooth pairing or WiFi pairing with the
printer, then you can print to it as well. And those are just the basic apps that come
with Zebra for free. What you are going to want to do is use a
custom application, right now there’s not a lot of out of the box good printing applications
for Zebra printers, using that style of Android device. Seagull Enterprise is available if you want
to create labels in Seagull Enterprise and then print them through the browser of your
phone, that is one option for doing more elaborate printing and printing quatitites or putting
in input values. You also can create an app for your inventory
or asset tracking needs that has printing built in, there is an SDK available from Zebra. POSGuys also does custom programming, so if
you would like us to do the programming for you, go ahead and give sales a call at 1-800-903-6571,
and they’d be happy to walk you through the process of submitting a custom application
that would work just for you, so it would be to a specific label format, and have whatever
criteria you want, if you want to scan in barcodes and then print them, you can do that. If you want to take images and then print
the image onto a label, you can do that as well. So there’s a lot of flexibility with what
you can do, but the easy pairing, using the touch to connect is a very good way of switching
between different printers depending on where you are. For more information, please visit us at POSGuys.com. Thanks!

Written by Brian Rohrer