LotHill Solutions - Helpdesk

We use an Epson- Receipt-Printer-driven Cash Drawer.

 

When our staff use the No Sale function to open the cash drawer, a short, empty receipt is printed.  This is very wasteful of thermal paper and confuses the staff.

 

It seems that Cashfootprint opens the cash drawer for No Sale by sending a single line receipt with a blank character (or carriage return, line feed, or similar).

 

Instead, can Cashfootprint be enhanced to just send the Drawer Open command to the Receipt Printer?

No we don't get any waste or extra cuts on a normal receipt print.

 

Our printer model is the Epson TM-T70 and we are using the Windows Driver ("Advanced Printer Driver").  ie. not using OPOS Driver.

 

Link to printer drivers & specs here: https://download.epson-biz.com/modules/pos/index.php?page=prod&pcat=3&pid=32

 

After some web searching it appears that different Receipt Printer models use different Control Codes to Kick the Cash Drawer (or cut the paper).  Perhaps CF is sending a control code that works on some Receipt Printers but leads to the drawer kicking plus some other (blank) characters on other Receipt Printer models?

 

On this website is a list of drawer kick control codes by printer brand/model: http://keyhut.com/popopen.htm

 

Could this be the reason?

 

Note: Many POS systems have a setting whereby the admin user can type in their control codes for the selected receipt printer.  This allows the Developer to accommodate all printers without having to keep a table of control codes vs printer models.

Product Support, we are having almost the same problem EXCEPT it waste the paper for every time it opens the cash drawer. We do not print receipts for all transactions, only when customers ask for one. Then hit reprint receipt as we are a drive thru quick stop.
We use the Star Micronics TSP800 (wide format) Receipt Printer.
If you can email me at louis@louisinks.com with a correction, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks

 

Some new information on this.  Since posting this issue we have upgraded to v1.3.2.5.

This now occurs on No Sale as well as Normal/Sale receipts.

It does not occur if we simply reprint a receipt from History (ie. no Pop command sent).  This seems to confirm that the Pop command that is being sent is not fully compatible with a selection of popular Epson receipt printers.

I notice that I originally reported this as a Feature Request but I suggest that it be changed to a Problem Ticket as:
- One of the releases has made it worse (now occurring on Normal/Sales receipts as well); AND
- Other customers are experiencing the same problem.

Thx Lothill Team,

js

OK - I have looked at this some more and I think I know what is going on.  This seems to be specific to Windows Printer Driver users (Epson / Star printer users so far).  OPOS Driver users probably don't have the same issue?

Scenario

When I pause my PC's print queue and use a PDF printer driver, I can see:

For Normal/Sales Receipts: Two documents hit the print queue:
Doc1)  A short document that seems to have only a "B" character in it.  According to Epson Windows Driver documentation, this is one of the Drawer Kick commands available when using "Control Fonts" to control Printer/Drawer actions.  Star Windows Printer Drivers use an almost identical Control Font mechanism which probably explains why "G Louis" above is having the same problem.

Doc 2) The body of the receipt with some more control characters at the end (presumably for feed, font selection & partial cut of the paper).

Both Docs print.  Doc 1 prints as a short, blank receipt.  Doc 2 prints as a normal receipt.

For a "No Sale": The same "empty" Doc 1 is issued to the print queue and it does print.  No Doc 2 is printed (of course!).

So Doc 1 is being treated as a printable document in the print queue and is causing a blank receipt to print each time.  Note: It is also (correctly) kicking the Cash Drawer open.

Why the change in behavior?

Previously I only saw this behavior when using the "No Sale" function (ie. a single Doc 1).  I did not see Doc 1 when printing a Normal Receipt.  This is because Cashfootprint previously placed the "B" control character within the Receipt document, not in a second document as it does now.  (I gathered this from the comment above: "The pop command is now sent independently of the receipt....").

Potential Fixes

A) Long Shot: Perhaps Doc 1 also contains one or more hidden non-Control Font characters that are causing the Print?  Could you pls check?  If so, an easier fix.  The Doc 1 print file is nearly 2kb in the print spool and when I open it with a Hex editor it seems to have a lot more in it than just the Control Character (but I'm not sure, might all be print metadata, not my area of expertise).

B) Most Likely: Perhaps the Epson driver will always print a document, even if it only has a Control Font character in it?  That is, it looks to me as if the Control Fonts are not supposed to be used standalone - ie. they are intended to be used inside of a printable document.

If this is the case, then the available solutions seem to be:

Solution 1 - Partial Solution Change Cashfootprint to revert back to printing the Control Font character within the Normal Receipt document instead of in a separate document (merge Doc 1 & Doc 2).

"No Sales" will still result in an empty, printed receipt (Doc 1).  But this is better than the current situation where every Normal Receipt is accompanied by a blank receipt.

Solution 2) Change Cashfootprint to not use the Windows Driver and Control Fonts.  Instead use ESC/POS commands.  Perhaps ESC/POS allows standalone Drawer Kicks without printing to the Windows printer queue?

Solution 3) Epson users switch to using OPOS Drivers instead (which will hopefully behave differently).  However, when I tried using the Epson OPOS Drivers with Windows 8 a year ago I had many incompatibility issues.

Other Notes

- I did try your suggestion to use a text device just for the Drawer Kick.  However, this still creates a print job in the Windows Print Queue for Doc 1 (and a blank receipt).

Should this be set up as a Problem ticket?

thx,

js

ps. PDF copies of Doc 1 & Doc 2 attached.

We only print receipts on demand. Currently that is only when the customer orders a food item that must be cooked OR if customer ask for receipt. So every time we process a sale to get the cash drawer open, we get the little slip of paper.
We tried installing the OPOS drivers. We are using touch screen all in one systems running XP Pro with the IBM server running Advance Server 2000. The when we selected the OPOS driver inside CashFootprint, we got no test printer or test drawer response. Printers are Star TSP800 "wide format" printers via LPT1. Cash drawers connect to the printers.
Thanks

 

We are still having this error. We do not print receipts unless needed for kitchen and use the reprint command therefore each sale prints a small blank pc of thermal papers. I thought our printers were at fault, had the Star TSP800 so we purchased new "SC9-2012 58mm POS Receipt Thermal Printer USB" printers. It is still happening! Yes we must use Esc/pos printer driver selection in Cash Foot Print and it sends it to the Windows printer driver called 58mm pos printer, they came with driver disc.
I really need help with this as even though the narrow thermal paper is cheaper than the wide printer paper, it is still a waste.
Please can someone up there fix this James? Thanks