ZPL Command Reference

Opens a label format. Every ZPL label begins with ^XA, and the printer ignores field commands that arrive before it.

Closes a label format and tells the printer to image and feed the label. Without it, nothing prints.

Sets the printable width in dots. Anything to the right of it is clipped, which is the usual cause of labels cut off on one side.

Sets the label length in dots. On continuous media it is what defines where one label ends and the next begins.

Moves the label origin. Every later ^FO and ^FT is measured from this point rather than from the top-left corner.

Prints every field in the format reversed — white on black — without putting ^FR on each one.

Enables or disables the printer's variable-data mode, used with ^FV to update a field without sending the full format again.

Stores a named ZPL template on the printer so later labels can recall its layout and provide only variable data.

Recalls a named stored format and fills its numbered fields with data in the current print job.

Offsets all following field origins horizontally, providing a format-wide left/right print adjustment in dots.

Offsets all following field origins vertically, providing a format-wide up/down print adjustment in dots.

Selects normal or inverted print orientation for the label image.

Places the top-left corner of the next field. It is the command you will use more than any other.

Places a field by its baseline rather than its top-left corner, so text of different sizes lines up.

Supplies the content of a field — the text, the barcode payload or the QR data.

Marks a field by number so a stored format can receive its data when the printer recalls it.

Ends the current field. Every field needs one, and a missing ^FS makes the rest of the label print as part of it.

Lets ^FD carry bytes written as _XX escapes — the only way to print a literal ^ or ~ in field data.

Inverts the next field against its background: black becomes white, so text can be knocked out of a filled box.

Turns every following field a quarter, half or three-quarter turn, so a template can be rotated without touching each command.

Adds a non-printing comment. Convenient for labelling sections of a template, with one sharp edge around carets.

Prints a field's characters down the label instead of across it, with control over the space between them.

Supplies one variable-data field for a printer format that uses ^MC, avoiding a full format download for every label.

Places a serial value that the printer can increment between labels in a print run.

Selects the font, size and rotation for the next field. ^A0 is the scalable font used by most modern templates.

Sets the font and size used by every following field that does not specify its own, so you can stop repeating ^A.

Binds a font stored on the printer to a single letter, so labels can select it the way they select a built-in font.

Wraps field data into a fixed-width text block with a line limit, justification and an optional hanging indent.

Selects the printer character set or Unicode encoding used to interpret later field data.

Sets the module width, ratio and height that following barcodes inherit. Module width is the main lever on whether a barcode scans.

Draws a Code 128 barcode — the symbology almost every shipping label uses for tracking numbers.

Draws a QR code. The data field takes a mode prefix that is easy to get wrong and is a frequent source of unreadable symbols.

The workhorse of industrial labelling: uppercase letters, digits and a handful of symbols, readable by every scanner ever made.

A denser, continuous relative of Code 39 that carries the full ASCII set — when the scanner is configured to read it.

The retail bar code used everywhere outside North America. Twelve digits in, and the printer works out the thirteenth.

The short EAN, for products too small to carry a full EAN-13: seven digits plus a check digit.

The North American retail bar code: eleven digits plus a check digit, in a fixed 95-module symbol.

A very dense numeric symbology — and the one most likely to be misread if you use it without a check digit.

An older numeric symbology kept alive by libraries, blood banks and courier systems, with letters A–D marking where the data starts and stops.

A stacked 2D symbology that holds a paragraph rather than a number — the code on driving licences and shipping manifests.

The compact square 2D code: a lot of data in a few millimetres, readable even when part of it is damaged.

A numeric-only symbology built for telecommunications equipment labels, where it is still the house standard.

A stacked symbology from before 2D codes existed: two to eight rows of bars in the footprint of a short linear code.

The USPS tracking code that rides alongside POSTNET, encoding its digits in the height of each bar rather than the width.

The compressed six-digit UPC, for retail packages too small to carry a full UPC-A.

Code 128 stacked into a block of rows, for when a linear code would be too long to fit the label.

The UPS symbol: a bullseye surrounded by hexagons, always one fixed size, carrying the routing data for a parcel.

PDF417 shrunk for small labels, trading capacity for a footprint that fits on a vial or a circuit board.

A numeric-only symbology where only the bars carry data and the spaces just separate them — wide, sturdy and largely obsolete.

The other numeric-only 2 of 5: same idea as Industrial, a different bar pattern, and the two are not interchangeable.

Code 39 with the US Department of Defense rules applied: the human-readable line is not optional.

A numeric symbology built for shelf labels in retail warehouses, and still found on them.

A 2D code with a bullseye at its centre and no quiet zone requirement, which is why transport tickets use it.

The ancestor of MSI: a numeric symbology from 1970s library and retail systems, kept in ZPL for the installations that still run them.

Six symbologies behind one command, built to put a full GTIN on items too small for a UPC — fresh produce most of all.

The two- or five-digit add-on that rides beside a UPC or EAN, carrying an issue number or a suggested price.

The TCIF linked bar code: a Code 39 for the ECI number with a MicroPDF417 beside it for everything else.

The USPS address code that encodes its digits in bar height, printed along the bottom of an envelope.

Draws a box or a line. With thickness equal to the height it becomes a solid bar — the basis of every reversed header.

Draws a circle with a diameter, border thickness and colour at the current field origin.

Draws a diagonal line across a rectangular field, with selectable rising or falling lean.

Draws an ellipse inside a width and height, with a configurable border thickness and colour.

Embeds a bitmap directly in the label — the command every PDF-to-ZPL and image-to-ZPL conversion produces.

Draws a bitmap that was downloaded to the printer once, instead of resending it with every label.

Stores an ASCII-hex bitmap in printer memory under a name, so later labels can recall it with ^XG instead of carrying the whole image.

How many copies of this label the printer produces, and whether it pauses or cuts between them.

How fast the printer runs — and the first thing to turn down when a barcode stops scanning.

A relative darkness adjustment for this format, on top of whatever the printer is already set to.

Sets the printer's darkness outright, from outside any label format.

What the printer does with a label once it is printed: tear it off, peel it, cut it, or hand it to an applicator.

How the printer finds where one label ends and the next begins — and the usual cause of blank or drifting labels.

Whether the printer uses a ribbon or burns the media directly — the difference between a printed label and a blank one.

Tells the printer to measure the media it is loaded with, which is the fix for most feeding and blank-label problems.

Makes the printer measure the label in front of it and adopt that length.

Saves the printer's current settings so they survive a power cycle — or throws them away and starts from the defaults.

Switches the printer between the original ZPL and ZPL II. Almost everything written today assumes ZPL II.