Printer Emulators

Compatibility

• ✅ 2.2 | ✅ 2.1 | ✅ 2.0 | ✅ 1.9 | ...

Background

The high costs of printer hardware can make a developer's job difficult when designing a product which has printing capabilities. Various methods exist for printing to virtual printers which avoid the need to purchase physical hardware during the research and development phases of a project as well as baseline troubleshooting of functionality.

Printer emulation is a critical part of reducing the overhead associated with a development lifecycle. Listed below are common printer hardware emulators/methods.

Pixel

OS	Name	Pixel	Comments
Windows	PDFCreator	✔️	Recommended choice for Windows. Download
Windows	CutePDF	✔️	Good alternative to PDFCreator
Windows	PrimoPDF	✔️	Good alternative to PDFCreator
Windows	Microsoft XPS Document Writer	✔️	600 dpi only; known to degrade image quality
Windows	Microsoft Print to PDF	✔️	600 dpi only; known to degrade image quality
macOS	RWTS PDFwriter	✔️	Recommended choice for MacOS. Download
macOS	Lisanet PDFwriter	✔️	Requires workarounds for macOS 10.10+
Linux	CUPS-PDF	✔️	Recommended choice for Linux. Download via apt/dnf/etc

Raw

OS	Name	Raw	Comments
All	esc2html	✔️ ESC/POS	See escpos-tools GitHub project
Windows	QPCPrint	✔️ ESC/P2	Windows 7 or lower, disable UAC. Download
Windows	Bematech	✔️ ESC/Bema	Download (Portugese language)
Windows	FILE:	✔️ Raw	Configure, Inspect output using XVI32 hex editor
Windows	PSA Output Manager	✔️ IGP/PGL (Printronix Graphics Language)	Recommended for IGP/PGL/Printronix testing. Please inquire with TSC support for a link to this software.
Windows	Virtual ZPL Printer	✔️ ZPL	Recommended for ZPL. Visit site
All	Labelary	✔️ ZPL	Recommended for copy/pasting ZPL. Visit site Can use from other OSs through socket connection
All	Zpl Printer (Emulator, Chrome app)	✔️ ZPL	Requires Chromium 108 or older. Download Notes: Install the app from the Chrome Webstore Find the app by searching Start/Spotlight Edit the settings and increase the buffer to something large (e.g. 50000B). Edit the settings to set the paper size When printing using QZ you may use "set to host" to print. Alternately, you may add a local raw printer which points to 127.0.0.1 with the emulator also listening on 127.0.0.1. Last, and this is important, make sure to toggle the emulator back "On" after making changes.