Raw and Pixel Printer Emulators

[Tres Finocchiaro]

I wanted to share a list of printer emulators we've discovered over the years and also invite others to post theirs as well.

If you have a printer emulator that works for your needs, please reply with a link (both free and commercial emulators are welcome)

https://qz.io/wiki/Printer-Emulators

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	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
Windows	QPCPrint	✔️ ESC/P	Windows 7 or lower, disable UAC. Download
Windows	Bematech	✔️ ESC/Bema	Download (Portugese language)
Windows	FILE:	✔️ Raw	Configure, Inspect output using XVI32 hex editor
All	Labelary	✔️ ZPL	Recommended for ZPL. Visit site

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[chinno...@gmail.com]

Pixel for Windows, I recommend CutePDF (download).

It's simpler and faster than PDFCreator, you just need to install the driver, nothing more!

It creates CutePDF Writer without having to configure settings or parameters like PDFCreator.

Works perfectly with QZ.IO.

[Tres Finocchiaro]

> Pixel for Windows, I recommend CutePDF (download).

Thanks.  Added.  Note, PDFCreator will remain our recommended choice due to the recommendation from the Apache PDFBOX team and the fact that we use the supported version for our Quality Control testing on Windows platforms, so it is the best baseline for comparison when testing.