I have written lots of articles about the rotation issue with Crystal Reports and Zebra printers. Apparently it can still crop up since I just helped a customer with this issue.  They installed the drivers from Seagull Scientific which usually solves the problem.  But in this case, once they had the drivers installed, the problem didn’t go away.  But after they re-calibrated the printer to the label media, the issue went away for them.  I am sharing the steps just in case this comes up for anyone else. These are the steps for the Zebra GK420d desktop printer:

1) Holding the feed button down
2) Wait until it blinks once, then blinks twice in quick succession.
3) Immediately release the button
4) It will automatically print out a few labels or so to figure out the dimensions.

(and thanks to Samuel Lindemulder of Kentwood Powder Coat for sharing these steps.)

I have written several posts regarding Zebra printers and the problems they have had with labels that rotate when they shouldn’t.  I read that this was fixed in CR 2008 with a recent service pack, but it isn’t clear if this was fixed for CR XI.   I just learned that Seagull Scientific provides free printer drivers for many zebra printers (and others).  These do not seem to have the problems with rotation that have been described, so that is another potential solution for some of you.

Update 11/30/2024:

This came up recently with a customer who had installed these drivers to solve the problem.  Even then it didn’t work at first until he ‘recalibrated’ the printer to the media. Then the issue was resolved.  Just in case someone else has a similar issue he shared the steps for the Zebra GK420d desktop printer:
1) Holding the feed button down
2) Wait until it blinks once, then blinks twice in quick succession.
3) Immediately release the button
4) It will automatically print out a few labels or so to figure out the dimensions.

(and thanks to Samuel Lindemulder of Kentwood Powder Coat for sharing these steps.)

I have written several posts regarding Zebra printers and the problems they have had with labels that rotate when they shouldn’t. According to this blog post in the SAP forums, this issue has been fixed in SP2.  I don’t have the printer to test so if any of you who have had this problem can confirm that this is fixed, please let me know.

(Added 6/25/2011)

I have heard that Seagull Scientific provides free printer drivers for many zebra printers.  These do not seem to have the problems described here.  So that is another potential solution.  In some cases re-calibrating the printer to the label will help the new drivers work correctly.

I worked with a customer yesterday who had a Zebra TLP 3842 printer to print individual labels. They recently upgraded from CR 9 to CR12 (2008) and with that upgrade they lost the ability to print labels correctly. After many attempts to isolate the problem we got down to this.

1) The preview in CR12 is correct, but the label contents print rotated 90 degrees. It seemed like an Continue Reading »
CR 2008 doesn’t like Zebra Label Printers?

I recently posted a problem that I found with printing labels from Crystal Reports. This month I get a note from a software company that has done quite a bit of testing and is convinced that this is a bug with Crystal Reports. Here is his note. If anyone else has anything to add, let me know. (The comments in the original post also provide some  workarounds.)

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Hello guys,

We are experiencing the same issue on both a zebra label and a Cognitive Advantage DLX printer on printing to a 2.3 x 1″ label.

We also found that printing on a 4×6 label, that the rotation does NOT happen but on random label sizes around the 2.3×1 label, it will indeed incorrectly rotate. I have been on the phone with the cognitive driver developers for a week and we have both agreed that the issue is a crystal reports issue in both XI and 2008 also in XP, Vista home, business, and ultimate editions of both 32-bit and 64-bit.

No matter what settings I set this to, any configuration of size, orientation, etc will not allow me to print a label correctly.

Like I said, using both of these printers, I can print the 4×6 label PERFECTLY, but on the 2.3×1.. it rotates 90 degrees.

I would like to help out as much as possible in this as we are a software company and have done extensive testing in this issue as well has have made high level contact at our distributor and the cognitive manufacturer as well. Please keep me updated on any advancements you guys make on this and I will do the same.. Any ideas how we can proceed to file a bug with Business Objects?

Thanks,
Benjamin Seidler, President
Stimulus Retail Solutions, Inc.

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Update 10/15/2009

SAP claims to fix this issue in SP2:

(Update 6/25/2011)

I have heard that Seagull Scientific provides free printer drivers for many zebra printers.  These do not seem to have the problems described here.  So that is another potential solution. In some cases re-calibrating the printer to the label will help the new drivers work correctly.