The public printer ● live

Try it from your terminal, like a real Zebra

This printer listens on raw TCP, exactly like hardware on port 9100. Open a socket and write ZPL, from a shell or any language:

printf '^XA^FO50,50^A0N,45,45^FDhello from my terminal^FS^XZ' | nc -q1 print.stripyhorse.io 9101

# or send a file:
nc -q1 print.stripyhorse.io 9101 < label.zpl

# ask it for status, Zebra-style (~HS: three STX/ETX lines, fault flags and all):
printf '~HS' | nc -q1 print.stripyhorse.io 9101

# or probe it with SGD:
printf '! U1 getvar "device.friendly_name"\r\n' | nc -q1 print.stripyhorse.io 9101

$zpl = '^XA^FO50,50^A0N,45,45^FDhello from powershell^FS^XZ'

$c = New-Object Net.Sockets.TcpClient('print.stripyhorse.io', 9101)
$s = $c.GetStream()
$b = [Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetBytes($zpl)
$s.Write($b, 0, $b.Length); $s.Flush(); $c.Close()

# or send a file:
$b = [IO.File]::ReadAllBytes('label.zpl')

# ask it for status, Zebra-style (~HS answers three STX/ETX lines):
$c = New-Object Net.Sockets.TcpClient('print.stripyhorse.io', 9101)
$c.ReceiveTimeout = 3000
$s = $c.GetStream()
$b = [Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetBytes('~HS')
$s.Write($b, 0, $b.Length); $s.Flush()
(New-Object IO.StreamReader($s)).ReadToEnd()
$c.Close()

import socket

zpl = b"^XA^FO50,50^A0N,45,45^FDhello from python^FS^XZ"
with socket.create_connection(("print.stripyhorse.io", 9101), timeout=10) as s:
    s.sendall(zpl)

# ask it for status, Zebra-style (~HS: three STX/ETX lines, fault flags and all):
with socket.create_connection(("print.stripyhorse.io", 9101), timeout=10) as s:
    s.sendall(b"~HS")
    print(s.recv(1024).decode())

<?php
$zpl = "^XA^FO50,50^A0N,45,45^FDhello from php^FS^XZ";
$printer = fsockopen("print.stripyhorse.io", 9101, $errno, $errstr, 10);
fwrite($printer, $zpl);
fclose($printer);

// ask it for status, Zebra-style (~HS: three STX/ETX lines, fault flags and all):
$printer = fsockopen("print.stripyhorse.io", 9101, $errno, $errstr, 10);
fwrite($printer, "~HS");
echo fread($printer, 1024);
fclose($printer);

using System.Net.Sockets;
using System.Text;

var zpl = "^XA^FO50,50^A0N,45,45^FDhello from csharp^FS^XZ";
using (var printer = new TcpClient("print.stripyhorse.io", 9101))
using (var stream = printer.GetStream())
{
    stream.Write(Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(zpl));
}

// ask it for status, Zebra-style (~HS: three STX/ETX lines, fault flags and all):
using (var printer = new TcpClient("print.stripyhorse.io", 9101))
using (var stream = printer.GetStream())
{
    stream.Write(Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("~HS"));
    var buf = new byte[1024];
    var n = stream.Read(buf, 0, buf.Length);
    Console.WriteLine(Encoding.ASCII.GetString(buf, 0, n));
}

import java.net.Socket;
import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;

public class PrintLabel {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        String zpl = "^XA^FO50,50^A0N,45,45^FDhello from java^FS^XZ";
        try (Socket printer = new Socket("print.stripyhorse.io", 9101)) {
            printer.getOutputStream().write(zpl.getBytes(StandardCharsets.US_ASCII));
        }

        // ask it for status, Zebra-style (~HS: three STX/ETX lines, fault flags and all):
        try (Socket printer = new Socket("print.stripyhorse.io", 9101)) {
            printer.getOutputStream().write("~HS".getBytes(StandardCharsets.US_ASCII));
            byte[] buf = new byte[1024];
            int n = printer.getInputStream().read(buf);
            System.out.println(new String(buf, 0, n, StandardCharsets.US_ASCII));
        }
    }
}

Network only allows printers by IP address? The same printer answers at 15.204.122.174 9101.

…or paste ZPL here

Break the printer

Real printers jam. Inject a fault, print something: the job holds in the receive buffer (watch ~HS report it), then clears and flushes. Faults auto-clear after 60s.

Three faults here, because this printer is shared. A printer of your own has all six, plus a roll and a ribbon that run out mid-job, stored objects, and your labels kept exactly as you sent them instead of anonymized for a public wall. That is the free account, no card.