It might be late, but I couldn't find an esc/pos utility to use with c++, so I coded a very minimalistic one.
As a very, very important note, this is a work in progress.
Simply create a build folder, move into it and execute cmake
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ../
You will need libusb, but that is the only dependency (at least in linux, no proprietary drivers are required when testing with a TM-T20II).
If you are using g++, then it is enough to type make to build the library.
The use of this library is pretty straightforward, I tried to follow the notation of python-escpos. An example code to print a text with a crippled version of markdown supported would be:
#include <iostream>
#include "escpospp/escpospp.h"
int main(){
try{
Printer::initializePrinter(std::pair<int,int>(0x04b8, 0x0e15));
Printer &printer = Printer::getPrinter();
printer.text("This is a **sample** text!\n");
printer.cut();
} catch (int e){
//There was an error
}
return 0;
}
Notice that the Printer class follows a kind of singleton pattern, so initializePrinter shall be called only once. Remember that you need to link to libEscPospp.a and libusb-1.0.a.
This library uses the ESC * protocol to send pictures to the printer. At the moment, the functionality is limited. You need to send te picture as a std::vector of pixel rows, which are std::vector<bool> objects (something like an stl matrix). An example of a mxn picture would be the next one.
std::vector< std::vector<bool> > myImage(m, std::vector<bool>(n, 0));
By default, the printing resolution is set to high, but you can change this setting with the printer's setResolution method.
The utility EscPos::loadImage uses the stb image library to load pictures into the said nested-vector format. So you can load a jpg picture, for example, as follows
std::vector< std::vector<bool> > myImage = EscPos::loadImage("the-file-name.jpg");
// Now we print it
printer.image(myImage);
To get more information on which files can be loaded and so, look into the stb_image.h file inside escpospp.
Note: the image might have some horizontal whitelines. I saw that this depends on the printer doing the proper line spacing, but I was not able to remove them in all of the printers.
The functionality will soon be implemented.
You can also send raw data to the printer by calling the raw method:
Printer printer = Printer::getPrinter();
printer.raw("Some sample text\n" + EscPos::CUT);
The provided EscPos namespace contains some useful instructions to be sent through the raw method to the printer.
Windows will install a usbprinter driver as soon as you plug in the thermal printer for the first time, but this driver is not compatible with libusb. To fix this issue, you can use a tool like Zadig to replace this driver with WinUSB. Just take note that after this, your computer won't recognize the printer as an actual priner ;)