zpl.tools
Format control

^XB - Suppress Backfeed

Stops the printer feeding the label back after printing.

^XB makes the printer behave, for one label, as though it were in rewind mode. It prints and stops, rather than feeds the label forward to the tear-off position and then backfeeds it before the next one. On a batch of labels that pair of moves is pure overhead, so ^XB is a throughput command, not a layout command. It changes nothing about the image.

Syntax

^XB

Support

Recognised, deliberately skippedparsed: none · state: none · rendered: none

Accepted and skipped, because it configures the printer rather than the label. It cannot change the rendered output, and Labelary skips it too.

Controls the media in the printer's mechanism, which cannot change the image. Both engines ignore it. — not pinned by a test

Labelary renders this command.

Parameters

^XB takes no arguments.

Behavior

^XB belongs inside the ^XA^XZ pair and applies to that label only. It is not a mode that stays on, and the guide is explicit: the last label of a batch must not carry it. Otherwise the run ends with the media under the print head rather than presented for a tear-off.

The printer mode decides which motion ^XB suppresses. In tear-off and peel-off mode, the normal cycle is backfeed, print, feed to rest, and with ^XB it is print alone. In cutter mode ^XB suppresses the cut as well as the backfeed, which the guide gives as a jam-prevention measure rather than an option. Expect uncut media, not a cut in a different place.

None of that reaches the image, so the renderer ignores the command. It reports IGNORED_COMMAND at info severity, which does not reach X-Warnings. Labelary is also silent, so the rendered label is identical in both engines.

Example

An intermediate label in a batch. The image is identical with or without ^XB.

^XA
^XB
^FO50,50^A0N,40,40^FDIntermediate label^FS
^XZ

Open in viewer

  • ^MF Media FeedThis command sets what the printer does with the media at power-up and when the printhead closes.
  • ~JS Change Backfeed SequenceThis command sets how far the printer pulls the media back, and whether before or after the print.
  • ^PN Present NowEjects a section of the current label so the operator can take it.