Android Question How to print text in graphic mode?

vecino · Jul 19, 2023

Hi, a customer has some portable bluetooth printers that only print English and Chinese characters.

I need to print these characters:

á é í ó ú Á É Í Ó Ú ñ Ñ ç Ç €

The printers are ESC/POS compatible, but the characters are "cut out" in all the codepages and there are no characters from other languages.

I made a question to the manufacturer and he has indicated that I must use the graphic mode to get these characters to print.
Can anyone explain to me how to do this?
Thank you very much.

vecino · Jul 19, 2023

These are the characters available in text mode:

byz · Jul 19, 2023

Maybe you should try to display the results you want to print into the panel, then give the panel screenshot and send the image to the printer for printing.

vecino · Jul 19, 2023

I can't do that, what is printed are sales tickets that usually take up quite a lot of space.

TILogistic · Jul 19, 2023

EDIT:
Have you tried printing a PDF with the characters you want?

[B4X] PDF Generator - B4X Cross Platform - Class 100% B4X Code

Hi, This class cPDF.bas (version 0.6 - 2024-01-03) generate PDF File with limited fonctionnalities (but enough for me) Add pages with different paper size (use constants or custom size) PDF standards font (Courier, Helvetica, Times, Symbol and Zapfdingbats), style (Normal, Bold, Italic...

www.b4x.com

Note:
to understand how printers work

What are printers and how do they work?

Learn about printers, devices that accept text and graphic output from a computer and transfer the information to paper or some other medium.

www.techtarget.com

tigrot · Jul 19, 2023

I remember that there are definable chars. At least on some printer. You can send a bitmao of the char. You can check on the printer guide. https://stackoverflow.com/questions...haracter-with-code-126-using-esc-pos-commands

vecino · Jul 19, 2023

TILogistic said:
Have you tried printing a PDF with the characters you want?

I see that at the beginning is defined the size of the page, and in sales tickets the size is not fixed.

pdf.StartPage(595, 842) 'A4 size

I do not know if it can be useful.
Thank you.

vecino · Jul 19, 2023

tigrot said:
I remember that there are definable chars. At least on some printer. You can send a bitmao of the char. You can check on the printer guide. https://stackoverflow.com/questions...haracter-with-code-126-using-esc-pos-commands

I'm going to check it out, because these cheap Chinese printers are unpredictable.

aeric · Jul 19, 2023

What brand and model is it?
Should have check the specs and what character sets are supported before purchase the hardware.

TILogistic · Jul 19, 2023

TILogistic said:
EDIT:
Have you tried printing a PDF with the characters you want?

[B4X] PDF Generator - B4X Cross Platform - Class 100% B4X Code

Hi, This class cPDF.bas (version 0.6 - 2024-01-03) generate PDF File with limited fonctionnalities (but enough for me) Add pages with different paper size (use constants or custom size) PDF standards font (Courier, Helvetica, Times, Symbol and Zapfdingbats), style (Normal, Bold, Italic...

www.b4x.com

Note:
to understand how printers work

What are printers and how do they work?

Learn about printers, devices that accept text and graphic output from a computer and transfer the information to paper or some other medium.

www.techtarget.com

And run a test printing the PDF with this.

RawBT Servicio de impresión - Aplicaciones en Google Play

Herramientas para impresoras térmicas compatibles con el protocolo ESC/POS

play.google.com

vecino · Jul 19, 2023

aeric said:
What brand and model is it?
Should have check the specs and what character sets are supported before purchase the hardware.

It is a new customer who already has printers and all the hardware. I'm just going to sell him my software.

aeric · Jul 19, 2023

vecino said:
It is a new customer who already has printers and all the hardware. I'm just going to sell him my software.

If I were you, I will suggest him to get another model which support the charset. BT thermal printers aren't expensive.

vecino · Jul 19, 2023

aeric said:
If I were you, I will suggest him to get another model which support the charset. BT thermal printers aren't expensive.

If I tell the customer that, then he says, "Then your software is too bad, I'll stick with the one I have because the printers work perfectly."

aeric · Jul 19, 2023

vecino said:
If I tell the customer that, then he says, "Then your software is too bad, I'll stick with the one I have because the printers work perfectly."

You mean he has the software that can print the characters, not in image (even the manufacturer said it is not possible)?

vecino · Jul 19, 2023

The printers do not have these characters, they print in graphic mode.
How do you print in graphic mode? That's what I want to know

vecino · Jul 19, 2023

TILogistic said:
And run a test printing the PDF with this.

RawBT Servicio de impresión - Aplicaciones en Google Play

Herramientas para impresoras térmicas compatibles con el protocolo ESC/POS

play.google.com

RawBT only says: Buy a license

aeric · Jul 19, 2023

vecino said:
How do you print in graphic mode?

Have you made a search?
There are many posts using ESC/POS to print image with BT thermal printer.

Bluetooth ESC/POS Printer Class

For the last couple of weeks I have been playing with an 80mm Bluetooth ESC/POS thermal printer I bought off eBay, new and delivered, for the ludicrously cheap price of £20. While the print quality, particularly of images with large areas of black (they are gray due to power supply or thermal...

www.b4x.com

SD EscPos Printer (Lan,USB, Bluetooth SPP, BLE)

This library allows you to print with thermal printers compatible with the ESC POS language in 4 different communication channels (USB, Bluetooth SPP, BLE, LAN) you can download the ble3 library from here The DEMO version prints one minute every 2. The full version of the library will be issued...

www.b4x.com

aeric · Jul 19, 2023

vecino said:
I need to print these characters:

edit: Better to use labels and put on a panel.

vecino · Jul 19, 2023

aeric said:
Have you made a search?
There are many posts using ESC/POS to print image with BT thermal printer.

Yes, the printer works perfectly with my software.
The only problem is that I can't print: Á É Í Ó Ú Ñ €
Because the printer does not have them, they have all been replaced by Chinese characters.

aeric · Jul 19, 2023

vecino said:
Yes, the printer works perfectly with my software.
The only problem is that I can't print: Á É Í Ó Ú Ñ €
Because the printer does not have them, they have all been replaced by Chinese characters.

There is nothing you can do if the printer does not support the charset or encoding. The only way is to print as image.

I would use one (or more) panel(s) as B4XView and load the receipt content to Label which is place inside the B4XView. Label can support these characters. Convert the B4XBitmap to black and white and print to the printer.

B4X:

Dim Panel1 As B4XView
Dim bmp As B4XBitmap = Panel1.Snapshot

or maybe just

B4X:

Dim Label1 As B4XView
Dim bmp As B4XBitmap = Label1.Snapshot

Note: I never tested with Label as B4XView.

Android Question How to print text in graphic mode?

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