What is DPL?

DPL (Datamax Printer Language) is the command language of Datamax — later Datamax-O’Neil, now Honeywell — thermal printers, common in industrial and healthcare labeling. Like ZPL for Zebras and TSPL for TSC printers, DPL is how applications tell a Datamax printer what to draw.

What it looks like

\x02L
D11
191100801000025LabelZoom
1e5504000000100012345678
E

DPL is terse: an STX control character starts a command, L enters label-formatting mode, numeric-prefixed records define text and barcode fields, E ends and prints. It’s noticeably less readable than ZPL or TSPL — one reason DPL labels are almost always generated by software, not written by hand.

Working with DPL files

The LabelZoom conversion engine parses DPL natively — rendering DPL labels to images and PDF the same way it renders ZPL. The REST API converts DPL in both directions — dpl is a source and a target (e.g. POST /api/v2/convert/dpl/to/pdf or POST /api/v2/convert/zpl/to/dpl); see Supported formats and the API quickstart. Dedicated web tools are rolling out. If you’re migrating Datamax labels to Zebra hardware or need DPL rendered for verification, contact us.