Re: using Brother QL-570 printer with Perl

As for generating bar codes in Perl, I've had good success using GD::Barcode to create bar code images. It's very simple and straight forward in my opinion.

As for having Perl print directly to the printer, in less than 5 minutes I found the following link: http://www.brother.com/product/dev/label/bpac/index.htm

That link is for the SDK package from Brother for their devices. With the C++ portion of that package, I think you should be able to use something like one of the inline modules or use Win32::API if they provide a DLL.

Also, it sounds like that SDK package includes stuff to allow you to create a way to print directly from Excel or Access. That leads me to believe that you can set that up and potentially use Win32::OLE to enter data (including bar codes) into Excel or Access and print from there.

Hopefully this information gets you headed down the right path.

Comment on Re: using Brother QL-570 printer with Perl

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Re^2: using Brother QL-570 printer with Perl by Bruce32903 (Scribe) on Aug 03, 2011 at 15:37 UTC
Thank you for the GD::Barcode suggestion. I'll look into it. I'm sorry but I forgot to include in my initial posting that I am using Linux. I'm sure your other suggestions are very good but they seem to be Windows oriented. Thank you, Bruce	[reply]
Re^3: using Brother QL-570 printer with Perl by Corion (Patriarch) on Aug 03, 2011 at 15:43 UTC
Is Linux a supported OS for this printer? Also note that this is Perlmonks, not Linuxmonks. If your printer has no driver already, it's highly unlikely that somebody will write a printer driver in Perl. My suggestion is to either first get the setup working on Windows and then worry about how to make the setup work under Linux (if ever), or to first buy hardware that has vendor support for Linux, and then work from there.	[reply]
Re^4: using Brother QL-570 printer with Perl by Bruce32903 (Scribe) on Aug 03, 2011 at 16:04 UTC
The printer works very well when printing from Open Office in Linux.	[reply]
Re^3: using Brother QL-570 printer with Perl by dasgar (Priest) on Aug 03, 2011 at 16:03 UTC
When asking for help with communicating with devices, it's usually a good idea to mention which OS you're working with. Since Brother's website was primarily listing Windows stuff for your device, I made the assumption that you were on Windows. Doing a quick Google search on "Brother QL-570 linux" yielded this link: http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/bsc/public_s/id/linux/en/index.html I'm not very experienced with Linux, but I think that if you're able to manually print to the device from the terminal (lpr command?), it should be easy to issue a system call from Perl to do the same. Also, on that page, one of the links describes how to print from OpenOffice and Gimp. If you can find a way to control those programs from Perl, that should give you another route to go.	[reply]
Re^4: using Brother QL-570 printer with Perl by Bruce32903 (Scribe) on Aug 03, 2011 at 16:13 UTC
It was a bad error on my part not to include in my initial posting that I am using Ubuntu 9.04 and that the printer has worked well for about a year when printing from Open Office. Sorry, Bruce	[reply]