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Convert PNG to ZPL and print

I'm trying to convert an image to ZPl and then print the label to a 6.5*4cm label on a TLP 2844 zebra printer on Python.
My main problems are:
1.Converting the image
2.Printing from python to the zebra queue (I've honestly tried all the obvious printing packages like zebra0.5/ win32 print/ ZPL...)
Any help would be appreciated.

I had the same issue some weeks ago. I made a python script specifically for this printer, with some fields available. I commented (#) what does not involve your need, but left it in as you may find it helpful.
I also recommend that you set your printer to the EPL2 driver, and 5cm/s print speed. With this script you'll get the PNG previews with an EAN13 formatted barcode. (If you need other formats, you might need to hit the ZPL module docs.)
Please bear in mind that if you print with ZLP 2844, you will either need to use their paid software, or you will need to manually configure the whole printer.
import os
import zpl
#import pandas
#df= pandas.read_excel("Datos.xlsx")
#a=pandas.Series(df.GTIN.values,index=df.FINAL).to_dict()
for elem in a:
l = zpl.Label(15,25.5)
height = 0
l.origin(3,1)
l.write_text("CUIT: 30-11111111-7", char_height=2, char_width=2, line_width=40)
l.endorigin()
l.origin(2,5)
l.write_text("Art:", char_height=2, char_width=2, line_width=40)
l.endorigin()
l.origin(5.5,4)
l.write_text(elem, char_height=3, char_width=2.5, line_width=40)
l.endorigin()
l.origin(2, 7)
l.write_barcode(height=40, barcode_type='2', check_digit='N')
l.write_text(a[elem])
l.endorigin()
height += 8
l.origin(8.5, 13)
l.write_text('WILL S.A.', char_height=2, char_width=2, line_width=40)
l.endorigin()
print(l.dumpZPL())
lista.append(l.dumpZPL())
l.preview()
To print the previews without having to watch and confirm each preview, I ended up modifying the ZPL preview method, to return an IO variable so I can save it to a file.
fake_file = io.BytesIO(l.preview())
img = Image.open(fake_file)
img = img.save('tags/'+'name'+'.png')
On the Label.py from ZPL module (preview method):
#Image.open(io.BytesIO(res)).show(). <---- comment out the show, but add the return of the BytesIO
return res

I had similar issues and created a .net core application which takes an image and converts it to ZPL, either to a file or to the console so it's pipeable in bash scripts. You could package it with your python app call it as a subprocess like so:
output = subprocess.Popen(["zplify", "path/to/file.png"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE).communicate()[0]
Or feel free to use my code as a reference point and implement it in python.
Once you have a zpl file or stream you can send it directly to a printer using lpr if you're on linux. If on windows you can connect to a printer using it's IP address as shown in this stack overflow question

For what is worth and for anyone else reference, was facing a similar situation and came up with a solution. To whom it may help:
Converting the image?
After trying many libraries i came across ZPLGRF although it seems the demo is focused on PDF only, i found in the source that there is a from_image() class property that could convert from image to zpl combining it part of the demo/exaples. Full code description below
Printing from python to the zebra queue?
Many libraries again but i settled with ZEBRA seem to be the most straight forward one to send raw zpl to a zebra printer
CODE
from zplgrf import GRF
from zebra import Zebra
#Open the image file and generate ZPL from it
with open(path_to_your_image, 'rb') as img:
grf = GRF.from_image(img.read(), 'LABEL')
grf.optimise_barcodes()
zpl_code = grf.to_zpl
#Setup and print to Zebra Printer
z = Zebra()
#This will return a list of all the printers on a given machine as a list
#['printer1', 'printer2', ...]
z.getqueues()
#If or once u know the printer queue name then u can set it up with
z.setqueue('printer1')
#And now is ready to send the raw ZPL text
z.output(zpl_code )
The above i have tested successfully with a Zebra GX430t printer connected via USB in a Windows 11 machine.
Hope it helps

How to create PDFOutline programmatically

I'm having trouble trying to create Table of Contents objects in a PDF file. I'm not sure whether I've understood the process from Apple's limited documentation.
I'm using python, but cogent examples in any language are welcome to explain how it's supposed to work. The code creates a new PDF document, but there's no outline item visible in Preview. I've tried just using myOutline as the root object, but that doesn't work either.
pdfURL = NSURL.fileURLWithPath_(infile)
myPDF = Quartz.PDFDocument.alloc().initWithURL_(pdfURL)
if myPDF:
# Create Destination
myPage = myPDF.pageAtIndex_(1)
pagePoint = Quartz.CGPointMake(0,0)
myDestination = Quartz.PDFDestination.alloc().initWithPage_atPoint_(myPage, pagePoint)
# Create Outline
myOutline = Quartz.PDFOutline.alloc().init()
myOutline.setLabel_("Interesting")
myOutline.setDestination_(myDestination)
# Create a root Outline and add the first outline as a child
rootOutline = Quartz.PDFOutline.alloc().init()
rootOutline.insertChild_atIndex_(myOutline, 0)
# Add the root outline to the document and save
myPDF.setOutlineRoot_(rootOutline)
myPDF.writeToFile_(outfile)
EDIT: Actually, the outline IS getting saved to the new file: I can read it programmatically, and it appears in Acrobat as a Bookmark; however, it doesn't show up in Preview's Table of Contents (yes, I checked for the "Hide" thing). If I add another Bookmark in Acrobat, then both show up in Preview.
So I guess that either I'm still doing something wrong which doesn't quite 'finish' the PDFOutline data properly, and Acrobat is being kind; or there's a massive bug in PDFKit that means you can't write PDFOutlines properly. I get the same behaviour on Mountain Lion, FWIW.

This does appear to be a bug in Preview. It will not list the Table of Contents if it contains ONLY ONE child entry.
If I add more Outlines with the code above, then all of them appear in Preview. If use other software to remove all but one entries in the Table of Contents, then Preview will not show any.

Search and replace placeholder text in PDF with Python

I need to generate a customized PDF copy of a template document.
The easiest way - I thought - was to create a source PDF that has some placeholder text where customization needs to happen , ie <first_name> and <last_name>, and then replace these with the correct values.
I've searched high and low, but is there really no way of basically taking the source template PDF, replace the placeholders with actual values and write to a new PDF?
I looked at PyPDF2 and ReportLab but neither seem to be able to do so.
Any suggestions? Most of my searches lead to using a Perl app, CAM::PDF, but I'd prefer to keep it all in Python.

There is no direct way to do this that will work reliably. PDFs are not like HTML: they specify the positioning of text character-by-character. They may not even include the whole font used to render the text, just the characters needed to render the specific text in the document. No library I've found will do nice things like re-wrap paragraphs after updating the text. PDFs are for the most part a display-only format, so you'll be much better off using a tool that turns markup into a PDF than updating the PDF in-place.
If that's not an option, you can create a PDF form in something like Acrobat, then use a PDF manipulation library like iText (AGPL) or pdfbox, which has a nice clojure wrapper called pdfboxing that can handle some of that.
From my experience, Python's support for writing to PDFs is pretty limited. Java has, by far, the best language support. Also, you get what you pay for, so it would probably be worth paying for a iText license if you're using this for commercial purposes. I've had pretty good results writing python wrappers around PDF-manipulation CLI tools like pdfboxing and ghostscript. That will probably be much easier for your use case than trying to shoehorn this into Python's PDF ecosystem.

There is no definite solution but I found 2 solutions that works most of the time.
In python https://github.com/JoshData/pdf-redactor gives good results. Here is the example code:
# Redact things that look like social security numbers, replacing the
# text with X's.
options.content_filters = [
# First convert all dash-like characters to dashes.
(
re.compile(u"Tom Xavier"),
lambda m : "XXXXXXX"
),
# Then do an actual SSL regex.
# See https://github.com/opendata/SSN-Redaction for why this regex is complicated.
(
re.compile(r"(?<!\d)(?!666|000|9\d{2})([OoIli0-9]{3})([\s-]?)(?!00)([OoIli0-9]{2})\2(?!0{4})([OoIli0-9]{4})(?!\d)"),
lambda m : "XXX-XX-XXXX"
),
]
# Perform the redaction using PDF on standard input and writing to standard output.
pdf_redactor.redactor(options)
Full Example can be found here
In ruby https://github.com/gettalong/hexapdf works for black out text.
Example code:
require 'hexapdf'
class ShowTextProcessor < HexaPDF::Content::Processor
def initialize(page, to_hide_arr)
super()
#canvas = page.canvas(type: :overlay)
#to_hide_arr = to_hide_arr
end
def show_text(str)
boxes = decode_text_with_positioning(str)
return if boxes.string.empty?
if #to_hide_arr.include? boxes.string
#canvas.stroke_color(0, 0 , 0)
boxes.each do |box|
x, y = *box.lower_left
tx, ty = *box.upper_right
#canvas.rectangle(x, y, tx - x, ty - y).fill
end
end
end
alias :show_text_with_positioning :show_text
end
file_name = ARGV[0]
strings_to_black = ARGV[1].split("|")
doc = HexaPDF::Document.open(file_name)
puts "Blacken strings [#{strings_to_black}], inside [#{file_name}]."
doc.pages.each.with_index do |page, index|
processor = ShowTextProcessor.new(page, strings_to_black)
page.process_contents(processor)
end
new_file_name = "#{file_name.split('.').first}_updated.pdf"
doc.write(new_file_name, optimize: true)
puts "Writing updated file [#{new_file_name}]."
In this you can black out text on select text will be visible.

As another solution you may try Aspose.PDF Cloud SDK for Python, it provides the feature to replace text in a PDF document.
First thing first, install the Aspose.PDF Cloud SDK for Python
pip install asposepdfcloud
Sample Code upload PDF file to your cloud storage and replace multiple strings in a PDF document
import os
import asposepdfcloud
from asposepdfcloud.apis.pdf_api import PdfApi
# Get App key and App SID from https://aspose.cloud
pdf_api_client = asposepdfcloud.api_client.ApiClient(
app_key='xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx',
app_sid='xxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxx')
pdf_api = PdfApi(pdf_api_client)
filename = '02_pages.pdf'
remote_name = '02_pages.pdf'
#upload PDF file to storage
pdf_api.upload_file(remote_name,filename)
#Replace Text
text_replace1 = asposepdfcloud.models.TextReplace(old_value='origami',new_value='aspose',regex='true')
text_replace2 = asposepdfcloud.models.TextReplace(old_value='candy',new_value='biscuit',regex='true')
text_replace_list = asposepdfcloud.models.TextReplaceListRequest(text_replaces=[text_replace1,text_replace2])
response = pdf_api.post_document_text_replace(remote_name, text_replace_list)
print(response)
I'm developer evangelist at aspose.

libreoffice python: how to set text wrap properties of images

From stackoverflow I learned how to set image properties in LibreOffice Writer with pyhton macros, via com.sun.star.text.WrapTextMode. Now I use that to set the text wrap to THOUGHT. Now I would like to set the image to background, like a watermark.
In LibreOffice Writer interactively I select an image, right-click on it and the context menu contains the "Wrap" commands, one is "Wrap Through" and the other one is "In Background".
In the python macro I have the following code (from Insert several images at once using macro scripting in LibreOffice and from the often quoted Andrew Pitonyak):
from com.sun.star.text.WrapTextMode import THROUGHT
and then to insert the image:
img = doc.createInstance('com.sun.star.text.TextGraphicObject')
element_url = 'file://' + file_name
img.GraphicURL = element_url
img.Surround = THROUGHT
text.insertTextContent(cursor, img, False)
So what is the code to put it "In Background"?

MRI shows that setting "In Background" causes the Opaque attribute to be false. So add this to the code:
img.Opaque = False
By the way, Surround is deprecated. Try setting TextWrap to THROUGHT instead.

Read binary data off Windows clipboard, in Blender (python)

EDIT: Figured THIS part out, but see 2nd post below for another question.
(a little backstory here, skip ahead for the TLDR :) )
I'm currently trying to write a few scripts for Blender to help improve the level creation workflow for a game that I play (Natural Selection 2). Currently, to move geometry from the level editor to Blender, I have to 1) Save a file from the editor as an .obj 2) import obj into blender, and make my changes. Then I 3) export to the game's level format using an exporter script I wrote, and 4) re-open the file in a new instance of the editor. 5) copy the level data from the new instance. 6) paste into the main level file. This is quite a pain to do, and quite clearly discourages even using the tool at all but for major edits. My idea for an improved workflow: 1) Copy data to clipboard in editor 2) Run importer script in Blender to load data. 3) Run exporter script in blender to save data. 4) Paste back into original file. This not only cuts out two whole steps in the tedious process, but also eliminates the need for extra files cluttering up my desktop. Currently though, I haven't found a way to read in clipboard data from the Windows clipboard into Blender... at least not without having to go through some really elaborate installation steps (eg install python 3.1, install pywin32, move x,y,z to the blender directory, uninstall python 3.1... etc...)
TLDR
I need help finding a way to write/read BINARY data to/from the clipboard in Blender. I'm not concerned about cross-platform capability -- the game tools are Windows only.
Ideally -- though obviously beggars can't be choosers here -- the solution would not make it too difficult to install the script for the layman. I'm (hopefully) not the only person who is going to be using this, so I'd like to keep the installation instructions as simple as possible. If there's a solution available in the python standard library, that'd be awesome!
Things I've looked at already/am looking at now
Pyperclip -- plaintext ONLY. I need to be able to read BINARY data off the clipboard.
pywin32 -- Kept getting missing DLL file errors, so I'm sure I'm doing something wrong. Need to take another stab at this, but the steps I had to take were pretty involved (see last sentence above TLDR section :) )
TKinter -- didn't read too far into this one as it seemed to only read plain-text.
ctypes -- actually just discovered this in the process of writing this post. Looks scary as hell, but I'll give it a shot.

Okay I finally got this working. Here's the code for those interested:
from ctypes import *
from binascii import hexlify
kernel32 = windll.kernel32
user32 = windll.user32
user32.OpenClipboard(0)
CF_SPARK = user32.RegisterClipboardFormatW("application/spark editor")
if user32.IsClipboardFormatAvailable(CF_SPARK):
data = user32.GetClipboardData(CF_SPARK)
size = kernel32.GlobalSize(data)
data_locked = kernel32.GlobalLock(data)
text = string_at(data_locked,size)
kernel32.GlobalUnlock(data)
else:
print('No spark data in clipboard!')
user32.CloseClipboard()

Welp... this is a new record for me (posting a question and almost immediately finding an answer).
For those interested, I found this: How do I read text from the (windows) clipboard from python?
It's exactly what I'm after... sort of. I used that code as a jumping-off point.
Instead of CF_TEXT = 1
I used CF_SPARK = user32.RegisterClipboardFormatW("application/spark editor")
Here's where I got that function name from: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms649049(v=vs.85).aspx
The 'W' is there because for whatever reason, Blender doesn't see the plain-old "RegisterClipboardFormat" function, you have to use "...FormatW" or "...FormatA". Not sure why that is. If somebody knows, I'd love to hear about it! :)
Anyways, haven't gotten it actually working yet: still need to find a way to break this "data" object up into bytes so I can actually work with it, but that shouldn't be too hard.
Scratch that, it's giving me quite a bit of difficulty.
Here's my code
from ctypes import *
from binascii import hexlify
kernel32 = windll.kernel32
user32 = windll.user32
user32.OpenClipboard(0)
CF_SPARK = user32.RegisterClipboardFormatW("application/spark editor")
if user32.IsClipboardFormatAvailable(CF_SPARK):
data = user32.GetClipboardData(CF_SPARK)
data_locked = kernel32.GlobalLock(data)
print(data_locked)
text = c_char_p(data_locked)
print(text)
print(hexlify(text))
kernel32.GlobalUnlock(data_locked)
else:
print('No spark data in clipboard!')
user32.CloseClipboard()
There aren't any errors, but the output is wrong. The line print(hexlify(text)) yields b'e0cb0c1100000000', when I should be getting something that's 946 bytes long, the first 4 of which should be 01 00 00 00. (Here's the clipboard data, saved out from InsideClipboard as a .bin file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bf8yhi1h5z5xvzv/testLevel.bin?dl=1 )