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What is SBPL?

SBPL (SATO Barcode Printer Language) is the command language of SATO label printers, including the CL4NX/CL6NX and S84NX/S86NX lines and the older GL4xxe.

Example

Section titled “Example”
<ESC>A
<ESC>H0001<ESC>V0100<ESC>WB1LabelZoom
<ESC>H0130<ESC>V0200<ESC>B103150*12345678*
<ESC>H0170<ESC>V0360<ESC>L0202<ESC>S12345678
<ESC>Q1
<ESC>Z

Every command starts with the ESC control byte (0x1B), shown here as <ESC>. Apart from that byte, SBPL is plain text, so files usually open readably in a text editor. A real job runs the commands together as one continuous stream; the example splits them onto lines to make them readable.

Command What it does
A Opens a print job
H, V Set the horizontal and vertical print position, in dots
WB1 Selects a smoothing font and prints the text after it
B1 Draws a barcode
L0202 Doubles the character expansion
S Prints text in a resident bitmap font
Q1 Sets the number of copies
Z Closes the print job

Modifiers such as L0202 are sticky: they apply to everything after them until another command changes them.

SBPL vs ZPL

Section titled “SBPL vs ZPL”
Aspect SBPL ZPL
Printers SATO CL4NX/CL6NX, S84NX/S86NX, GL4xxe Zebra, and other printers that emulate ZPL
Command prefix ESC (0x1B) before every command ^ or ~
Positioning Separate H and V commands One ^FO or ^FT per field
Formatting Sticky: rotation, expansion, and pitch persist until changed Mostly set per field

Convert SBPL files

Section titled “Convert SBPL files”

These free tools run in your browser:

The LabelZoom API converts SBPL to and from ZPL, PDF, and images. For example, POST /api/v2/convert/sbpl/to/pdf renders SBPL as a PDF, and POST /api/v2/convert/zpl/to/sbpl converts ZPL to SBPL. Save SBPL output as bytes, not text; see Binary output.

What’s next

Section titled “What’s next”