Free online M3U to ZPL converter

What the M3U format is

M3U is a plain-text playlist containing media paths or URLs, normally one entry per line. Lines beginning with #, including #EXTINF, contain comments or metadata; the media files are not embedded in the playlist.

VLC, Winamp, Kodi, IPTV applications, media servers, and many music players create or read M3U files. Common uses include exporting a playback queue, saving an IPTV channel list, transferring media locations, and archiving a collection. The .m3u8 variant uses the same general structure with UTF-8 encoding.

What the ZPL format is

ZPL, or Zebra Programming Language, is a printer command language rather than a playlist or document format. A ZPL file defines label size, positions, text, barcodes, graphics, fonts, and print quantities with commands such as ^XA, ^FO, ^FD, and ^XZ.

ZPL is compact and can be sent directly to compatible Zebra printers from an inventory system, print server, Zebra Setup Utilities, or a raw printer connection. There is no standard one-to-one M3U-to-ZPL mapping: the exporter must decide which playlist fields become label fields and how the labels should be laid out.

How to convert M3U to ZPL

Choose the label content first. Typical fields are the playlist position, filename, full path or URL, duration, artist, title, and a barcode containing an internal identifier. For a predictable result, generate ZPL with a short script rather than expecting a generic format converter to invent a suitable label design.

from pathlib import Path

source = Path("playlist.m3u")
target = Path("playlist.zpl")

lines = source.read_text(encoding="utf-8-sig", errors="replace").splitlines()
items = [line.strip() for line in lines if line.strip() and not line.lstrip().startswith("#")]

def zpl_hex(value):
    return "".join(f"_{byte:02X}" for byte in value.encode("utf-8"))

labels = []
for number, item in enumerate(items, 1):
    filename = Path(item.split("?", 1)[0]).name or item
    labels.append(
        "^XA^CI28"
        "^FO40,40^A0N,32,32^FB700,2,0,L,0^FH^FD" +
        zpl_hex(f"{number}. {filename}") + "^FS"
        "^FO40,105^A0N,20,20^FB700,5,0,L,0^FH^FD" +
        zpl_hex(item) + "^FS"
        "^XZ"
    )

target.write_text("\n".join(labels), encoding="ascii")
print(f"Wrote {len(labels)} labels to {target}")

1. Save the code as m3u_to_zpl.py beside playlist.m3u, or change the two Path values.
2. Run python m3u_to_zpl.py. It creates playlist.zpl with one label for each non-comment playlist entry.
3. Open the output in a text editor and verify the entries. Send the file as raw ZPL through Zebra Setup Utilities, a print server, or a printer's raw TCP service, commonly port 9100.

For a simple file conversion without installing software, the built-in converter on 101convert.com can be used free. Inspect its output before printing because playlist-to-label conversion still depends on the required fields, label dimensions, fonts, and printer settings.

Quality and compatibility limits

The script skips every line beginning with #, so it does not print #EXTINF title, artist, or duration data. Parsing those records separately is required when that metadata must appear on the label. Relative paths remain relative, and URLs are printed as text; the script does not download, resolve, or validate media.

^CI28 requests UTF-8 handling on printers with compatible firmware. ^FH enables hexadecimal field data, and the script encodes non-ASCII characters and ZPL control characters as byte sequences. Older printers may require a downloaded Unicode font, a different encoding, or firmware that supports the selected character set.

Adjust ^FO, ^A0, and ^FB for the actual label width and height. The sample uses positions and widths in printer dots; a layout made for 203 dpi can require repositioning on a 300 or 600 dpi printer. Add commands such as ^PW and ^LL when the printer's stored media settings do not match the label. Long paths and URLs can exceed the field capacity, so preview or test-print the result before a batch run.