Using a Brother QL-800 label printer

I'm currently working on a software project that will use a Brother QL-800 label printer. I chose to printer thanks to the presence of SDK documentation since I’m going to write a .NET Core WPF application that will handle the printer. The application is very simple, four input fields that shall be printed. 

The SDK works well, it does what it’s supposed to do. The general feeling is that Brother actually created an SDK that was intended to be used.

My approach was to create a template in Brother’s P-touch Editor software, and use the template (adding data to template) when printing. It’s probably possible to dynamically create the label in the API, but using a template is fast and easy. Every text field in the template is assigned an Object Name (e.g. “FieldName”). The object name is later used when printing. Below is a snippet of code which will print a label (29mm x 90mm) containing four text fields.

using bpac;
using System;

namespace QL800ConsoleApp
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var doc = new DocumentClass();

            if (doc.Open("LabelTemplateBlack_29x90.lbx"))
            {
                // fill out fields in template
                doc.GetObject("FieldNumber").Text = "12345";
                doc.GetObject("FieldName").Text = "Gary Goodspeed";
                doc.GetObject("FieldDate").Text = DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm"); ;
                doc.GetObject("FieldNote").Text = "12345";

                // cut label when done
                doc.StartPrint("", PrintOptionConstants.bpoAutoCut);
                // print one copy
                doc.PrintOut(1, PrintOptionConstants.bpoDefault);
                // we're done
                doc.EndPrint();

                doc.Close();
            }
            else
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Template file not found");
            }
        }
    }
}