Why is it rocket science to set up thermal printing?
Trying to get a thermal printer to work with UPS Worldship 2018
You might have to install the printer as a zp450. I have had issues with ups worldship in the past when trying to use an "unsupported" printer that was identical to another zebra that they do support. I had to install it to the computer as if it were the supported one then it worked perfectly fine.
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Cannot properly print thermal labels from UPS.com
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Software: UPS Worldship 2018, on a Windows 7 PC. (Standalone.)
Hardware: Zebra ZP 505 thermal printer
We recently updated our shipping PC at work, and the ancient UPS label printer we were using connected via *parallel cable, which the new PC does not have, thus we cannot use it anymore.
We have a much newer label printer (see above), which is basically identical as far as function and the roll label stock used, that was acquired for Fedex shipping. However when we attempt to print a shipping label through it, the barcode and some of the info normally on the label does not show up.
I called UPS tech support, and they essentially said that their software does not support this printer. Even though they do support essentially identical ones like the ZP 450. (I suspect this is a BS reason due to the one we have being via Fedex, even though the printer company is 3rd party.)
Here is the officially supported list of thermal printers per UPS.
Is there possibly a workaround for this? E.g. installing the drivers for a version they do support? For all intents, the printer we have should functionally work fine, they are just choosing not to support it.
**UPDATE - Solved! Uninstalled the original ZP505 drivers, downloaded and reinstalled the printer using the UPS-supported ZP450 printer drivers, now it works perfectly.
I imagine that now the FedEx shipping software may not work with the printer, but we very rarely use it and can always process those online.
You might have to install the printer as a zp450. I have had issues with ups worldship in the past when trying to use an "unsupported" printer that was identical to another zebra that they do support. I had to install it to the computer as if it were the supported one then it worked perfectly fine.
On Windows 11, I was trying to setup a UPS Thermal Printer 2844 with no luck. I tried using drivers downloaded from zebra.com (zsu-1191325.exe and the TLP 2844) but those didn't work and the test page prints out just a windows printer image. However, I used older drivers (UPS_5_1_7_certified_w10) to install the "UPS Thermal 2488" printer and that resolved the issue.