In my experience printing to the zebra thermal printers was a matter of printing via a RAW print queue.
1. Designing a Zebra label template file using zebra software. ( Paid software to render the template files after designing it graphically. )
2. Have the application produce the correct data file in the format expected by the zebra printer.
3. Print via the RAW queue in one transaction the template file followed by any number of data files to have the printer merge the two and print the labels.
This means the application only need provide the data elements in a flat file.
Alternatively you need to "speak" ZPL from the application and directly control the print on the printer.
Not sure if this helps - but there is my 2c worth.
Talking about sticking to what you know:
In my experience printing to the zebra thermal printers was a matter of printing via a RAW print queue.
1. Designing a Zebra label template file using zebra software. ( Paid software to render the template files after designing it graphically. )
2. Have the application produce the correct data file in the format expected by the zebra printer.
3. Print via the RAW queue in one transaction the template file followed by any number of data files to have the printer merge the two and print the labels.
This means the application only need provide the data elements in a flat file.
Alternatively you need to "speak" ZPL from the application and directly control the print on the printer.
Not sure if this helps - but there is my 2c worth.