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brother_ql/LEGACY.md
Philipp Klaus 160cea90d4 new CLI: brother_ql 
This will slowly deprecate the other CLIs such as
* brother_ql_create
* brother_ql_print
* brother_ql_info
* brother_ql_analyze
* brother_ql_debug
2018-08-08 18:50:01 +02:00

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## Legacy User Interfaces
The following user interfaces of this package are still around but their use is now deprecated and they will
be removed in a future release of the package. This documentation still lists the old UI and how it was used.
### Create
The command line tool `brother_ql_create` is possibly the most important piece of software in this package.
It allows you to create a new instruction file in the label printers' raster language:
brother_ql_create --model QL-500 ./720x300_monochrome.png > 720x300_monochrome.bin
If you want to find out about its options, just call the tool with `--help`:
brother_ql_create --help
giving:
usage: brother_ql_create [-h] [--model MODEL] [--label-size LABEL_SIZE]
[--rotate {0,90,180,270}] [--threshold THRESHOLD]
[--dither] [--compress] [--red] [--600dpi] [--no-cut]
[--loglevel LOGLEVEL]
image [outfile]
positional arguments:
image The image file to create a label from.
outfile The file to write the instructions to. Defaults to
stdout.
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--model MODEL, -m MODEL
The printer model to use. Check available ones with
`brother_ql_info list-models`.
--label-size LABEL_SIZE, -s LABEL_SIZE
The label size (and kind) to use. Check available ones
with `brother_ql_info list-label-sizes`.
--rotate {0,90,180,270}, -r {0,90,180,270}
Rotate the image (counterclock-wise) by this amount of
degrees.
--threshold THRESHOLD, -t THRESHOLD
The threshold value (in percent) to discriminate
between black and white pixels.
--dither, -d Enable dithering when converting the image to b/w. If
set, --threshold is meaningless.
--compress, -c Enable compression (if available with the model).
Takes more time but results in smaller file size.
--red Create a label to be printed on black/red/white tape
(only with QL-8xx series on DK-22251 labels). You must
use this option when printing on black/red tape, even
when not printing red.
--600dpi Print with 600x300 dpi available on some models.
Provide your image as 600x600 dpi; perpendicular to
the feeding the image will be resized to 300dpi.
--no-cut Don't cut the tape after printing the label.
--loglevel LOGLEVEL Set to DEBUG for verbose debugging output to stderr.
The image argument should be a PNG/GIF/JPEG image file.
Here is the output of `brother_ql_info list-label-sizes` listing the available options for `--label-size`:
Supported label sizes:
Name Printable px Description
12 106 (12 mm endless)
29 306 (29 mm endless)
38 413 (38 mm endless)
50 554 (50 mm endless)
54 590 (54 mm endless)
62 696 (62 mm endless)
102 1164 (102 mm endless)
17x54 165 x 566 (17 x 54 mm^2)
17x87 165 x 956 (17 x 87 mm^2)
23x23 202 x 202 (23 x 23 mm^2)
29x42 306 x 425 (29 x 42 mm^2)
29x90 306 x 991 (29 x 90 mm^2)
39x90 413 x 991 (38 x 90 mm^2)
39x48 425 x 495 (39 x 48 mm^2)
52x29 578 x 271 (52 x 29 mm^2)
62x29 696 x 271 (62 x 29 mm^2)
62x100 696 x 1109 (62 x 100 mm^2)
102x51 1164 x 526 (102 x 51 mm^2)
102x152 1164 x 1660 (102 x 152 mm^2)
d12 94 x 94 (12 mm diameter, round)
d24 236 x 236 (24 mm diameter, round)
d58 618 x 618 (58 mm diameter, round)
**Pro Tip™**:
For the best results, use image files with the matching pixel dimensions. Die-cut labels have to be in the exact pixel dimensions stated above. For endless label rolls, you can provide image files with a pixel width as stated above. If you provide a file with different dimensions when creating an endless label file, it will be scaled to fit the width.
### Print
Once you have a Brother QL instruction file, you can send it to the printer like this:
cat my_label.bin > /dev/usb/lp1
Be sure to have permission to write to the device (usually adding yourself to the *lp* group is sufficient.
Or via network (if you have a LAN/WLAN enabled Brother QL):
nc 192.168.0.23 9100 < my_label.bin
You can also use the tool `brother_ql_print` (Py3 only) to send the instructions to your printer:
brother_ql_print 720x151_monochrome.bin /dev/usb/lp0
# or
brother_ql_print --backend network 720x151_monochrome.bin tcp://192.168.0.23:9100
# or (requires PyUSB: `pip install pyusb`)
brother_ql_print 720x151_monochrome.bin usb://0x04f9:0x2015
# or if you have multiple ones connected:
brother_ql_print 720x151_monochrome.bin usb://0x04f9:0x2015/000M6Z401370
# where 000M6Z401370 is the serial number (see lsusb output).
If your printer has problems printing the instructions file, it may blink its LED (green or red) depending on the model. This can have many reasons, eg.:
* The selected label doesn't match (make sure `--red` has been passed to `brother_ql_create` if you're using black/red labels).
* End of paper.
* Unsupported opcode (wrong `--model` when using `brother_ql_create`?)
### DEBUG
In case of trouble printing an instruction file, there are some ways to help debugging.
One way is to look into the binary raster instruction file, see the *Analyse* section.
The other way is to send those instructions to the printer one by one and check how it reacts, see the *Debug* section.
#### Analyse
To analyse a binary file containing Brother QL Raster instructions:
brother_ql_analyse 720x300_monochrome.bin --loglevel DEBUG
The tool will dissect your file and print the opcodes to stdout.
In addition, it creates PNG images of what the printer's output would look like.
They are saved to page0001.png etc. (yes, one .bin file can contain more than one "page").
This tool also has the `--help` option.
(This specific tool doesn't work on Python 2.)
#### Debug
If your printer has problems printing the instructions file, it may blink its LED (green or red) depending on the model. This can have many reasons, eg.:
* The selected label doesn't match.
* End of paper.
* Unsupported opcode (some printers require a mode switching opcode, others fail if such an instruction is sent; some do support data compression, others don't)
To debug this situation and find out which command could be the culprit, connect your printer via USB. (You don't get any status information via network).
You can use the supplied tool `brother_ql_debug` to send your problematic instructions file to the printer. It will be split into single instructions sent one after the other.
After every instruction, the printer will be given a chance to send a status response containing error information. Here is an example:
philipp@lion ~> brother_ql_debug ./720x151_monochrome.bin /dev/usb/lp0
INFO: CMD preamble FOUND. Instruction: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 [...] 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
INFO: CMD init FOUND. Instruction: 1B 40
INFO: CMD status request FOUND. Instruction: 1B 69 53
INFO: Response from the device: 80 20 42 30 4F 30 00 00 00 00 3E 0A 00 00 15 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
INFO: Interpretation of the response: 'Reply to status request' (phase: Waiting to receive), 'Continuous length tape' 62x0 mm^2, errors: []
INFO: CMD media/quality FOUND. Instruction: 1B 69 7A CE 0A 3E 00 97 00 00 00 01 00
INFO: CMD margins FOUND. Instruction: 1B 69 64 23 00
INFO: CMD raster FOUND. Instruction: 67 00 5A 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 FF FF FF 1F FF FF FF FF FF F0 00 00 00 00 00 0F FF FF 03 FF FF FF FF E0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 [...] 00 07 FF FF 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
INFO: Response from the device: 80 20 42 30 4F 30 00 00 00 00 3E 0A 00 00 15 00 00 00 06 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
INFO: Interpretation of the response: 'Phase change' (phase: Printing state), 'Continuous length tape' 62x0 mm^2, errors: []
INFO: CMD print FOUND. Instruction: 1A
TIME 1.60
INFO: Interpretation of the response: 'Printing completed' (phase: Printing state), 'Continuous length tape' 62x0 mm^2, errors: []
TIME 1.60
INFO: Interpretation of the response: 'Phase change' (phase: Waiting to receive), 'Continuous length tape' 62x0 mm^2, errors: []
Here, a command file was successfully printed. The last response should state the *Waiting to receive* phase.
If you want to confirm the sending of every single command individually, you can add the `--interactive` argument to the command line call.
If you're seeing any error there, open a new issue on Github containing the debugging output to get your device supported.
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