ESC/POS Printing

jack5 · October 14, 2020, 7:58pm

Has anyone here had any luck with printing to POS printers in Bubble?
It’s my understanding that you will need to use ESC/POS commands to print(or some subset)

vini_brito · October 14, 2020, 8:31pm

Yep, you can use QZ for that, and then send data to QZ and QZ will control the printer. Also, a plugin can be used to make this easier.

teofeijun1986 · October 20, 2020, 12:51pm

Is the printer plugin QZ tray printer by tonyp? I can’t seem to get it to work?

vini_brito · October 20, 2020, 3:27pm

Oh hi! Yeah, that’s pretty much it! The owner made it public.
There’s an instruction manual PDF in its service link. Follow it and you should be fine.

teofeijun1986 · October 21, 2020, 2:48am

Thanks for the reply Vini,

I tried the plugin but it doesn’t work. Do we need to further install the download from https://qz.io/download/ before the plugin can work? It seems that qz.io is charging 499 per year for this service.

vini_brito · October 21, 2020, 3:45am

Yeah you need to follow QZ’s guide on installing it.
The plugin talks to QZ and QZ talks to the printer (:

brent1 · December 10, 2020, 9:26am

Did you find a solution here? I’m working through the same issue. I can print plain text to a receipt printer with a pdf file but that doesn’t communicate formatting… I’m thinking there would be a way if I knew html. Epson’s cloud print API could play a role too.

mrzbektas · December 12, 2020, 2:00pm

has anyone managed to use this? im struggling to understand the guide thats attached to the plug in, can anyone help me set it up please?

BrianHenderson · December 13, 2020, 2:19am

I highly recommend taking a look at JSPrintManager by Neodynamic. Free to use with no limits while testing which is AWESOME. I found it very easy to work with to interface Bubble with ESC/POS receipt printers and ZPL label printers. You control them via JavaScript! You can even control serial devices like weight scales. Check out what I built using it:

Wash-Dry-Fold POS

brent1 · December 13, 2020, 2:51am

What alternatives did you find while you were working on this project?

BrianHenderson · December 13, 2020, 2:59am

QZTray is a competing product, but I found it hard to implement.

Epson and Star Micronics both have some proprietary programming stuff available specifically for their printers, but I sell POS hardware so I wanted something a bit more flexible and brand agnostic.

mrzbektas · December 13, 2020, 11:38am

I found an app which we can connect to our Web application and it collects the details on that page and sends it to any Bluetooth printer. But the issue is it has to be json data which I have no idea since I never coded or even where to code on bubble lol

BrianHenderson · December 13, 2020, 8:08pm

Wouldn’t the API Connector output JSON? Have you tried that? Give us more details about this mrzbektas.

adunniola · December 13, 2020, 9:18pm

Having this same dilema at the moment. Client want to print to receipt printer.

We are testing with a Zebra Printer
Any leads are appreciated

adunniola · December 13, 2020, 9:52pm

How did you you implement this?

mrzbektas · December 14, 2020, 1:09am

It isn’t a api connection, not 100% sure though. The explanation was, I add a html link to my page which turns into a Printer button that connects to a mobile app, it sends the data to print directly to any thermal printer you connected but it has to be in Json format. I used the print page plugin for now which is connected to my thermal printer but I have a issue where it prints a lot of empty paper which is a waste.

Do you know if we can send esc pos commands for om bubble?!
Screenshot_20201212-222022|281x500

mrzbektas · December 14, 2020, 1:17am

github.com

diegoveloper/quickprinter/blob/master/README.md

# Quick Printer
## Android POS Printer (ESC/POS)
> Created for the purpose of serving as a channel among other applications that require printing data on receipt printers using ESC/POS commands.

## __Introduction__
Quick printer is an Android application that allows you to add and configure receipt printers (POS printers) through different connection types:
- Wifi local network
- Bluetooth
- USB (OTG)

The most important thing is that it allows you to print the text you share from any application, so you can print your favorite texts.

And if you're a developer, you can integrate your application in a super simple way so you can print tickets, receipts, etc.

> The application supports many types of thermal and matrix printers such as EPSON, BIXOLON, STAR MICRONICS, CITIZEN, etc.


## __Usage__
The steps for using the application will be detailed below:

This file has been truncated. show original

The site contains some explanation, I don’t know much about codes so I struggle with the explanations and understandings.

maru · January 2, 2021, 5:00pm

I built a plugin for printnode that allows you to print remotely from bubble apps. You can use printnode to print to thermal printers automatically.

jabguiapal · January 3, 2021, 10:52am

Hi @BrianHenderson , is your POS can be used offline? and the data will just sync when the internet is available?

BrianHenderson · January 4, 2021, 2:50pm

@jabguiapal No, it’s a standard Bubble website. While a couple of things can be done locally such as kicking open the cash drawer (since that’s performed via JavaScript running in the user’s browser) the rest of it is totally dependent on an internet connection. However, since I already sell POS systems to stores, I also sell a cellular internet failover router that provides a backup internet connection automatically if the main one ever has an outage. So, I think I have my bases covered in that regard.