Mobile printing with Android and Zebra printer

In my last project I used Zebra mobile printers to print data sent from Android devices.

In general there isn’t nothing hard to do, only one thing that I don’t like is that I have to install a big application to get the Zebra SDK ( you can find the SDK here ).

There are few simple steps that we have to do to get Android and Zebra printer connected:

1. Add permissions to your AndroidManifest.xml

   <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH" />
   <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH_ADMIN" />

2. In our Activity we have to get the BluetoothAdapter and BondedDevices

   BluetoothAdapter bAdapter = BluetoothAdapter.getDefaultAdapter();
   Set<BluetoothDevice> pairedDevices = bAdapter.getBondedDevices();
   final ArrayList<BluetoothDevice> btList = new ArrayList<>();
   btList.addAll(pairedDevices);

3. Here is the code that can send data to printer

   private ZebraPrinter print(BluetoothDevice bDevice,String content)
   {
       ZebraPrinter printer = null;
       Connection printerConnection= new BluetoothConnection(bDevice.getAddress());
       try {
           printerConnection.open();
           printer = DataHolder.getInstance().getPrinter();
           if(printer == null) {
               printer = ZebraPrinterFactory.getInstance(PrinterLanguage.CPCL, printerConnection);
               DataHolder.getInstance().setPrinter(printer);
           }
           sendToPrint(printer,content);
           printerConnection.close();
       } catch (ConnectionException e) {
           Log.d(TAG,e.getMessage());
       } finally {
   
       }
   
       return printer;
   }
   private void sendToPrint(ZebraPrinter printer,String content) {
       try {
           File filepath = getFileStreamPath("TEMP.LBL");
           createFile("TEMP.LBL", content);
           printer.sendFileContents(filepath.getAbsolutePath());
       } catch (ConnectionException e1) {
           Log.d(TAG,"Error sending file to printer");
       } catch (IOException e) {
           Log.d(TAG,"Error creating file");
       }
   }
   
   private void createFile(String fileName, String content) throws IOException {
   
       FileOutputStream os = this.openFileOutput(fileName, Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
   
       os.write(content.getBytes());
       os.flush();
       os.close();
   }

4. Let’s suppose our printer is first in btList array. We can print some data by calling the print() method like this:

   print(btList.get(0), content);

Here you can see how this works in real life:

Thanks to MemoExpress for printer.

[:en]In my last project I used Zebra mobile printers to print data sent from Android devices.

In general there isn’t nothing hard to do, only one thing that I don’t like is that I have to install a big application to get the Zebra SDK ( you can find the SDK here ).

There are few simple steps that we have to do to get Android and Zebra printer connected:

1. Add permissions to your AndroidManifest.xml

   <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH" />
   <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH_ADMIN" />

2. In our Activity we have to get the BluetoothAdapter and BondedDevices

   BluetoothAdapter bAdapter = BluetoothAdapter.getDefaultAdapter();
   Set<BluetoothDevice> pairedDevices = bAdapter.getBondedDevices();
   final ArrayList<BluetoothDevice> btList = new ArrayList<>();
   btList.addAll(pairedDevices);

3. Here is the code that can send data to printer

   private ZebraPrinter print(BluetoothDevice bDevice,String content)
   {
       ZebraPrinter printer = null;
       Connection printerConnection= new BluetoothConnection(bDevice.getAddress());
       try {
           printerConnection.open();
           printer = DataHolder.getInstance().getPrinter();
           if(printer == null) {
               printer = ZebraPrinterFactory.getInstance(PrinterLanguage.CPCL, printerConnection);
               DataHolder.getInstance().setPrinter(printer);
           }
           sendToPrint(printer,content);
           printerConnection.close();
       } catch (ConnectionException e) {
           Log.d(TAG,e.getMessage());
       } finally {
   
       }
   
       return printer;
   }
   private void sendToPrint(ZebraPrinter printer,String content) {
       try {
           File filepath = getFileStreamPath("TEMP.LBL");
           createFile("TEMP.LBL", content);
           printer.sendFileContents(filepath.getAbsolutePath());
       } catch (ConnectionException e1) {
           Log.d(TAG,"Error sending file to printer");
       } catch (IOException e) {
           Log.d(TAG,"Error creating file");
       }
   }
   
   private void createFile(String fileName, String content) throws IOException {
   
       FileOutputStream os = this.openFileOutput(fileName, Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
   
       os.write(content.getBytes());
       os.flush();
       os.close();
   }

4. Let’s suppose our printer is first in btList array. We can print some data by calling the print() method like this:

   print(btList.get(0), content);

Here you can see how this works in real life:

Thanks to MemoExpress for printer.