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.

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.

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.

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.

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.