>I am using a Barcode Blaster BD 4 from Cognitive Solutions to print a Fox 2.6 label. Every so often (about a third of the time) the damned thing loses it's marbles and prints at the wrong speed and won't stop after the label is finished (spits out about three). Also I can't get the label to align properly (it leaves a huge gap when the label size is set correctly, if the label is configured to be larger, the printer gets very confused and NEVER works properly).
>
>I have some questions:
> -is there a way to send simple string commands to the printer port?
>
> -why can't I print over the whole label? (Print area is set to whole page, driver is configured absolutely properly).
>
>Has anyone used these printers before? I need help...

We use these printers all the time and have very little problem with them. The problem you are seeing sounds like it might be a gap indexing problem. If you look in the manual you will see some commands for calibrating that.

Beyond that, we have been using them since back in the DOS days, and so all of the code we have just creates the command string required to print the barcode and sends it straight out the port. Some of our software we do that sending straight text using the generic printer driver. You have to learn the commands from the manual, but they aren't that hard.