Why is my bluetooth printer is printing gibberish?

If you attempt to print from FieldClock and see code such as (\"S^FO200,210^FD^FS^XZ….\"), your bluetooth printer may not have the right print code enabled or it may be on an old firmware version.

If you are using a ZQ310

  1. Download and install Zebra Setup Utility for Windows.
  2. Launch Zebra Setup Utility
  3. Plug your ZQ310 in to a USB port on your computer
  4. If your ZQ310 is not shown on the list of available printers, click Install New Printer and follow the workflow to install your ZQ310
  5. Select your ZQ310 from the list of printers
  6. Click Open Communication With Printer (see Figure 1 below)
  7. In the upper text area, enter the following text (see Figure 2 below):
    ! U1 setvar "device.languages" "zpl"
  8. Click Send To Printer
  9. Try printing from FieldClock app again.  If the printer still prints gibberish, repeat steps 5-9.

Figure 1

Figure 2 

For more information, please see Zebra's directions.

If you are using an iMZ220

Note:  Zebra has discontinued the iMZ220 series and it has been replaced by the ZQ310 .  If you already have iMZ printers, the following steps should be helpful.  If you are buying a new printer we strongly recommend purchasing the ZQ310.

  1. Download firmware V73.20.01Z (or newer) from Zebra's website. *Please note that you may have to register for Zebra's site to download this software.
  2. Download ZDownloader from Zebra's website
  3. Open the ZDownloader program you downloaded. This will install Zebra's FirmwareDownloader program on your computer
  4. Open FirmwareDownloader (on Windows, you can find this in your Start menu or by opening My Computer and browsing to C:\Program Files (x86)\Zebra Technologies\Firmware Downloader and ZBI Key Manager)
  5. Follow the directions from Zebra's website to download the new firmware file to your computer