~HS - Host Status Return

Sends three status strings describing the printer's current state back to the host.

~HS asks whether the printer is ready, and is the most used command in this group. The printer answers with three strings: the interface settings, the media and error flags, and the memory options. Print-spooling software polls it to learn whether the paper runs out, the head is up or the buffer is full.

Syntax

~HS

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.

Returns paper-out, pause, buffer and label-count flags over the printer's link. A render request has none of those states. The renderer does not parse this 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. — not pinned by a test

Labelary renders this command.

Parameters

~HS takes no arguments.

Behavior

Each of the three replies starts with <STX> and ends with <ETX><CR><LF>, and every field is positional:

String 1 — aaa,b,c,dddd,eee,f,g,h,iii,j,k,l. The communication settings come first, as a three-digit decimal encoding of eight bits. Then come the paper-out, pause, label length, formats in the receive buffer, buffer-full, diagnostic-mode and partial-format flags, an always-000 unused field, and the corrupt-RAM and under- and over-temperature flags.
String 2 — mmm,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,uuuuuuuu,v,www. The function settings come first, again bit-packed into three decimal digits. Then come head-up, ribbon-out, thermal transfer, print mode, print width mode, label-waiting, labels remaining in the batch, an always-1 flag, and the count of graphics stored in memory.
String 3 — xxxx,y: the password, and whether static RAM is installed.

Almost every one of those fields describes a physical condition. A render request has no paper, no ribbon, no head and no receive buffer, so no correct value exists for any of them, and no link carries them. The renderer ignores the command, and the page is unchanged. It reports IGNORED_COMMAND at info severity, which does not reach X-Warnings. Labelary is also silent.

The HTTP response replaces ~HS for a caller that needs to know whether a print job succeeded:

the status code states whether the service accepted the format
X-Total-Count states how many pages it rendered
X-Warnings carries the parser's diagnostics

Example

~HS draws nothing, so it needs a field alongside it to produce a page at all. ^XA~HS^XZ on its own generates no labels, and a request for the first page of that format is answered with a 404 rather than a blank image.

^XA
~HS
^FO50,50^A0N,40,40^FDStatus query^FS
^XZ

Open in viewer

~HQ Host QuerySends one of ten named printer reports back to the host.
~HI Host IdentificationSends the printer model, firmware version, resolution, memory size and detected options back to the host.
^HH Configuration Label ReturnSends the printer's configuration back to the host as text.
~HU Return ZebraNet Alert ConfigurationSends the printer's configured alert destinations back to the host.