Tech-Tip: Important changes regarding Zebra ZPL output in InterForm400

As you may remember there was a change for the ZPL output in InterForm400 when we introduced the 2014 versions. With the 2014 versions the command prefixes are now fixed values for the complete ZPL data stream, which makes printing possible on quite new Zebra printers. Unfortunately we later also found out, that the handling of soft fonts in the new Zebra printers has also changed.

The handling of soft fonts in Zebra printers depends very much on the firmware of the printer:

For firmware nn.13.nn and older the printers only understand one kind of soft fonts (which is inefficient).

For firmware nn.14.nn and up to nn.17.nn the printers understand both the old kind of soft fonts and a new more efficient way of including soft fonts, and you do not need to do anything if these are the only printers you use.

For firmware nn.18.nn the printers only understand the new soft fonts.
So if you want to use soft fonts on newer Zebra printers, then you need to upgrade to version 2014M10 (or newest official version). The attached document explains the details.