title: Zebra Programming Language (ZPL) II using ^FB or ^TB truncates text at specific lenghts
body: <p>I am writing code to print labels for botanic gardens. Each label is printed individually but with different information on each label. Each label contains a scientific name which can vary greatly in size and thus can go over 2 lines (our label size is 10cm wide by 2.5cm high).
  Our problem occurs mainly with the name when we go over 24 characters (See line with **). 
  If we choose a name that has 24 characters or less then it prints fine. 
  Anything more it will not print. 
  If we take all the other "items" off the label and just leave the "name" element then it prints only the first 24 characters and truncates the rest (we did this to test whether a possible overlap between our ^FB block and another element could be causing this problem).
  We tried this with other elements that use a ^FB and we found that they displayed the same behaviour but varied in the length at which this issue occurred: for example "cc" (short for country code) had a limit of 21 characters.</p>
  
  <p>For added information: we compile this code within a BASIC environment and use variables such as ":name:", ":Acc.dt":" as seen bellow. Our database provides this information and we have checked for any internal routines that would have truncated long names etc. Our code was working fine in ZPL but we recently had to move to ZPL II (we purchased a newer model GX430t) and had to modify our ZPL code at which point this problem started to occur.</p>
  
  <p>Here is our code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>^XA
  ^LH40,40
  ^MMT
  ^PW1200
  ^LL1200
  ^FO16,05^A0N,35,^FDAcc. num.^FS
  ^FO170,05^A0,35,^FV":accnum:"^FS
  ^FO360,05^A0,35,^FV":qual:"^FS
  ^FO350,35^A0N,30,^FDAcc.dt.^FS
  ^FO450,35^A0N,30,^FB790,3,0,L,
  ^FH\^FV":accdt:"^FS
  ^FO430,70^^A0N,25,^FB790,3,0,L,
  ^FH\^FDProv. type^FS
  ^FO560,70^A0N,25,^FV":provtype:"^FS
  ^FO800,225^A0N,30,^FB790,3,0,L,
  ^FV":cc:"^FS
  **^FO10,100^A0N,40,^FB790,3,0,L,
  ^FV":name:"^FS**
  ^FO1000,05^A0,35,^FV":proptype:"^FS
  ^FO5,225^A0,25^FVColl.^FS 
  ^FO55,225^A0,25^FV":coll:"^FS
  ^FO375,225^A0,25,^FV":consstat:"^FS
  ^FO1000,70^A0,25,^FV":reqby:"^FS
  ^FO535,180^BCN,55,N,N,N^FV":qual:"^FS
  ^FO60,45^BCN,35,N,N,N^FV":accnum:"^FS
  ^PQ1,0,1,Y
  ^XZ
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Here is what we have tried to fix this (apologies if some seem like wild cards):</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Changing font type, size, and location on label;</li>
  <li>Changing ^FO to ^FT;</li>
  <li>Looked at our internal database logic;</li>
  <li>Taking away ^FH\;</li>
  <li>Changing the values within the ^FB line (we tried nearly all possible permutations);</li>
  <li>Manually typed in a name longer than 24 characters (using notepad - no database/compiler) - same issue.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated
  Kerry</p>