Usage

Define your printer

USB printer

Before start creating your Python ESC/POS printer instance, you must see at your system for the printer parameters. This is done with the ‘lsusb’ command.

First run the command to look for the “Vendor ID” and “Product ID”, then write down the values, these values are displayed just before the name of the device with the following format:

xxxx:xxxx

Example:

# lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 04b8:0202 Epson ...

Write down the the values in question, then issue the following command so you can get the “Interface” number and “End Point”

# lsusb -vvv -d xxxx:xxxx | grep iInterface
    iInterface              0
# lsusb -vvv -d xxxx:xxxx | grep bEndpointAddress | grep OUT
      bEndpointAddress     0x01  EP 1 OUT

The first command will yields the “Interface” number that must be handy to have and the second yields the “Output Endpoint” address.

USB Printer initialization

Epson = printer.Usb(0x04b8,0x0202)

By default the “Interface” number is “0” and the “Output Endpoint” address is “0x01”, if you have other values then you can define with your instance. So, assuming that we have another printer where in_ep is on 0x81 and out_ep=0x02, then the printer definition should looks like:

Generic USB Printer initialization

Generic = printer.Usb(0x1a2b,0x1a2b,0,0x81,0x02)

Network printer

You only need the IP of your printer, either because it is getting its IP by DHCP or you set it manually.

Network Printer initialization

Epson = printer.Network("192.168.1.99")

Serial printer

Must of the default values set by the DIP switches for the serial printers, have been set as default on the serial printer class, so the only thing you need to know is which serial port the printer is hooked up.

Serial printer initialization

Epson = printer.Serial("/dev/tty0")

Other printers

Some printers under /dev can’t be used or initialized with any of the methods described above. Usually, those are printers used by printcap, however, if you know the device name, you could try the initialize passing the device node name.

Epson = printer.File("/dev/usb/lp1")

The default is “/dev/usb/lp0”, so if the printer is located on that node, then you don’t necessary need to pass the node name.

Define your instance

The following example demonstrate how to initialize the Epson TM-TI88IV on USB interface

from escpos import *
""" Seiko Epson Corp. Receipt Printer M129 Definitions (EPSON TM-T88IV) """
Epson = printer.Usb(0x04b8,0x0202)
# Print text
Epson.text("Hello World\n")
# Print image
Epson.image("logo.gif")
# Print QR Code
Epson.qr("You can readme from your smartphone")
# Print barcode
Epson.barcode('1324354657687','EAN13',64,2,'','')
# Cut paper
Epson.cut()

Configuration File

You can create a configuration file for python-escpos. This will allow you to use the CLI, and skip some setup when using the library programically.

The default configuration file is named config.yaml. It’s in the YAML format. For windows it is probably at:

%appdata%/python-escpos/config.yaml

And for linux:

$HOME/.config/python-escpos/config.yaml

If you aren’t sure, run:

from escpos import config
c = config.Config()
c.load()

If it can’t find the configuration file in the default location, it will tell you where it’s looking. You can always pass a path or a list of paths to search to the load() method.

To load the configured pritner, run:

from escpos import config
c = config.Config()
printer = c.printer()

The printer section

The printer configuration section defines a default printer to create.

The only required paramter is type. The value of this should be one of the printers defined in Printers.

The rest of the parameters are whatever you want to pass to the printer.

An example file printer:

printer:
        type: File
        devfile: /dev/someprinter

And for a network printer:

printer:
        type: network
        host: 127.0.0.1
        port: 9000

Advanced Usage: Print from binary blob

Imagine you have a file with ESC/POS-commands in binary form. This could be useful for testing capabilities of your printer with a known working combination of commands. You can print this data with the following code, using the standard methods of python-escpos. (This is an advantage of the fact that _raw() accepts binary strings.)

from escpos import printer
p = printer.Serial()  # adapt this to your printer model

file = open("binary-blob.bin", "rb")  # read in the file containing your commands in binary-mode
data = file.read()
file.close()

p._raw(data)

That’s all, the printer should then print your data. You can also use this technique to let others reproduce an issue that you have found. (Just “print” your commands to a File-printer on your local filesystem.) However, please keep in mind, that often it is easier and better to just supply the code that you are using.

Here you can download an example, that will print a set of common barcodes:

How to update your code for USB printers

Old code

Epson = escpos.Escpos(0x04b8,0x0202,0)

New code

Epson = printer.Usb(0x04b8,0x0202)

Nothe that “0” which is the interface number is no longer needed.