Printers

Module Guide - A Deeper Dive!

Printers

Introduction

Label Printers play a key role in commodity identification for every stage of product manufacture – from ingredient receiving to finished product shipping.

V5 Traceability supports a variety of printer models which use common languages including IPL or ZPL. Multiple types of label printers can be added and configured within the software and assigned to locations and roles.

Networked label printers (hardwired LAN or Wifi) are preferred for V5 Traceability, although the software will also support serial and USB devices.

This guide walks the user through the centralized addition, configuration, and management of label printers within V5 Traceability.

Table of Contents

1. Printer Setup

Printers can be set up within V5 Traceability using a variety of different connection methods, which we will look at here.

Service Name via a Direct Connection

This is the simplest connection we can make between our computer and the printer, and is usually made via USB or a serial port. Once connected to the computer and fully installed with any required drivers up to date, Windows will assign the printer service a name.

 

We can then take this service name and apply this to the ‘Service Name’ column when setting up our connected printer. From here once we select a default set of labels to use, we will be able to use this printer with this computer’s V5 Traceability applications.

 

If we are not using a direct connection to a Windows service, then the ‘Service Name’ column can be left blank/completed with any other information that would help identify the printer.

Networked Printers

We can also print to a printer that is on the same local area network to the computer running V5 Traceability applications. When setting this up in Control Center, all that is required is that we enter the IP address and port number that the printer is using. Once these details are filled out and a label set selected, the printer will be selectable and usable by any instances of V5 Terminal or V5 WMS that are connected to the same local network.

 

FTP Printing

Finally, we have the option to use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to send to printers that are managed by an FTP server. To use this, first we must know the IP address and port number of the server, and then enter a username. This will tell V5 Traceability to attempt an FTP connection. A password should also be entered if required.

The two other columns we could use here to complete setup for FTP printing would be the ‘Directory’ column, if the files sent to be printed should be placed in a specific directory on the server. If this is left blank then the file will be placed in the root directory of the FTP server. We can also designate a ‘File Extension’ for files to be sent to the server, specific to the attached printer (.prn for example).

We would then select our default label set (in this case ‘DEFAULT-Z’ since we are using Zebra) after which the printer would be visible and usable to any instance of Terminal or WMS that are connected to the same local network. For more information on the creation and use of labels in V5 Traceability, click here.

2. Selecting Printers In V5 Traceability

In both the Terminal and WMS apps, we have the information bar at the bottom of the window. Part of this information bar is the printer select button. By default, this will show the first printer that was created in Control Center, so in this case ‘Zebra V’. An app’s default printer can be set in its configuration (contact SG Support for help setting this up), or can be set in Terminal’s settings if the operator has sufficient privileges.

 

If we hit this button, we will be presented with a list of all the printers that are currently available to that Terminal/WMS instance, and so the operator will be able to choose whichever one they are required to use.

 

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