Labelary

Labelary ZPL (Zebra Printer Language) Web Service API Client for Ruby.

Features:

• Render ZPL strings as PNG or PDF.
• Encode images to ZPL.
• Global configuration or per-request.
• Helper method for including fonts.

Web service details and instructions: http://labelary.com/service.html

Supported ZPL commands: http://labelary.com/docs.html

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'labelary'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install labelary

Configuration

Configuration is available, you can set this per request or in an initializer like so:

# config/initializers/labelary.rb
Labelary.configure do |config|
  config.dpmm   = 8 # required
  config.width  = 3.98 # required (inches)
  config.height = 6.85 # required (inches)
  config.index = 0 # optional, for picking a label when multiple are present in the ZPL (usually 0)
  config.content_type = 'image/png' # or 'application/pdf', specifies the content type of the returned label
  config.url = 'http://api.labelary.com' # optional (for self hosted)
end

Usage

Rendering Labels

Pass in a width, height, dpmm (or set defaults in your configuration block) and a ZPL string to have it rendered as a PNG or PDF.

Labelary::Label.render zpl: '^XA^FDHello World^FS^XZ', content_type: 'image/png', dpmm: 8, width: 6, height: 4
#> PNG blob

Or with configuration:

# config/initializers/labelary.rb
Labelary.configure do |config|
  config.dpmm   = 8
  config.width  = 6
  config.height = 4
  config.content_type = 'application/pdf'
end

# elsewhere e.g. lib/label_render.rb
Labelary::Label.render zpl: '^XA^FDHello World^FS^XZ'
#> PDF blob

Fonts

Fonts can be included automatically via config, or per request, using the font argument. To do this pass in the correctly formatted ^DU command as a string.

For example if you've got a Zebra font package such as Swiss 721

You also need to configure fonts.

Labelary::Label.render zpl: '^XA^A@,,,E:TT0003M_.FNT^FDHello World^FS^XZ', font: File.read('./swiss-721-font/77849_002.ZSU')

There is also a helper method, Labelary.font to grab your configured font string.

ZPL Encoding Images

Pass in an image (or an IO object) and it's mime type and you'll get back a ZPL encoded version.

Labelary::Image.encode path: '/path/to/image.png', mime_type: 'image/png'
#> "^GFA,6699,6699,87,,::lR01F,SNIP,:^FS"

Labelary::Image.encode file_io: IO.read('/path/to/image.png'), filename: 'image.png', mime_type: 'image/png'
#> "^GFA,6699,6699,87,,::lR01F,SNIP,:^FS"

Rails Example

It's reasonably straight-forward to incorporate this into a Rails project if you wish. Here's an example in a controller:

# config/initializers/labelary.rb
Labelary.configure do |config|
  config.dpmm   = 8
  config.width  = 6
  config.height = 4
end

# config/initializers/mime_types.rb
Mime::Type.register 'text/plain', :zpl

# app/views/labels/label.zpl.erb
^XA^FDHello <%= @label.name_for_earth %>^FS^XZ

# app/controllers/labels_controller.rb
class LabelsController < ApplicationController

  # snip

  def label
    @label = Label.find params[:id]
    zpl_string = render_to_string formats: [:zpl]

    respond_to do |format|
      format.zpl
      format.png { get_rendered_zpl zpl_string }
      format.pdf { get_rendered_zpl zpl_string, 'application/pdf' }
    end
  end

  private

  def get_rendered_zpl(zpl_string, content_type='image/png')
    rendered_zpl = Labelary::Label.render zpl: zpl_string, content_type: content_type
    send_data rendered_zpl, type: content_type, disposition: 'inline'
  end
end

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/rjocoleman/labelary.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.