Thermal receipt printing

[B.Berg]

Hello all,

Has anyone worked with Filemaker printing to a thermal receipt printer under either Mac or Windows? What printer works best with FM and are there any plug-ins required to use a thermal printer?

Thanks!

Brian

[jasonwood]

I have been testing a Star Micronics TSP643U on Mac OS X for a little while. I am reasonably impressed by it, although I have noticed occasionally that I have to restart the printer (only a minor inconvenience).

The TSP643U is the same as the TSP613U, only with an autocutter instead of a tear bar. The "U" means USB. With the auto cutter, you can control either a partial (almost full), full, or no cut through the driver.

These printers also have the ability to open cash drawers (up to 2). I have found this to work reliably with OS X as well, and FileMaker will remember this setting (as well as the cut setting) in the Page Setup [Restore] script step.

When purchasing, be aware that the power supply for Star printers are sold separately. I can ask my supplier if they have any resellers in Arizona if you have trouble finding one. I do not ship outside Canada.

You will have a great deal of trouble finding anything to work under OS 9 (especially thermal), and you will have even more trouble finding something that works under both OS 9 and OS X, so I'd just stick with OS X.

There are no plugins required, it's just a regular printer driver.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions!

[B.Berg]

Thanks for the feedback on the Star. It is a nice printer with a lot of features. That's great news about the OS X support, and I'm sure Windows support is virtually identical if I need it.

Can you detect the status of the printer via Filemaker? IE: Low paper, jam, not responding

Brian

[jasonwood]

Can you detect the status of the printer via Filemaker?

Probably... if you're familiar with AppleScript you could probably ask Print Center.

I have never had a paper jam/run out of paper so I'm not even sure if print center detects this. I don't have it here so I can't try. Normally when I have a problem, print center gets stuck on the "processing job" step. I'm not using the latest driver, so that could be resolved.

By the way, the printer/driver is a disaster on OS X v10.2 without the 10.2.3 update, and I have no idea how it performs on earlier versions.

Here are a few more comments I forgot to mention:

The paper loading procedure is absolutely brain dead. Just drop in and that's it!

And you don't have to order it in Beige. There is also a little known "charcoal" version, sometimes listed as "grey". It is very dark.