Hi, Travis from POSGuys.com.
Today's Ask the Guys question is how do you print to a kitchen printer from a tablet.
A tablet obviously can be wireless, so there's no traditional USB or Ethernet ports on it,
where you could connect your printer to it.
So how do you print to a printer?
You have to use a network printer, so you either have to use a WiFi version or a wired
version, you need a wireless network set up so that your tablet can connect to it, and
as long as the tablet and printer are all on the same network, then you'll be able to
print to it.
So here I have a Star SP700, this is the most popular printer when it comes to printing
to tablets, it is an Ethernet model on it, and it's an impact with auto-cutter.
It's connected to my little mini network that I have set up.
One thing that you're going to need to know how to do is how to print the self-test.
So I'm going to turn the printer off, and then on the front is the feed button, I'm
going to turn the printer back on while holding down the feed button, and then it's going
to print out a sheet.
One more sheet is going to print.
The important part is the second sheet, and in particular, at the very end, it talks about
your IP address.
So at the bottom, it's going to say the IP address that's its been using.
It's going to be on the third line from the bottom.
If you're using DHCP, it'll say DHCP on it.
But the important thing to remember is that IP address right there.
From there, you can go to a browser and put in this IP address and then configure the printer.
So here I have my tablet open, if I go to Safari, I've already put the IP address for
the printer in to it, but this is the configuration screen, so from here, if you click the login,
it's going to bring up a login box, if you put in the credentials for the printer, then
you can go and configure the settings.
For now though, I'll just kind of show you what you can do, you can go to device info,
device status, and you can make sure the printer is online and working.
If you can see it in here, then this portion of the set up is ready to go.
Once you have the printer being detected in the browser, then you can set up your software
to work on it.
I'm going to use just the plain old Square app for it.
Inside of Square, you go into your settings, and then you go down to printer, and once
you're in printer, you'll see the name of the printer, there I have it right there,
WiFi Printer 1, and then in it, you can say automatically print receipt or order tickets.
So if you click that, then it'll print tickets automatically.
After you're done, you can make sure it works by doing the print test, and then it prints
a test receipt.
So that's the basics on getting a kitchen printer to work on your tablet app.
Overall I recommend using the Star SP700 just because it's compatible with the most apps
out there.
The Epson TM-U220 Ethernet is also very popular version, but it's not as available with as
many applications, the Star kind of was the first one out and so it's adapted the most
commonly.
Besides that, you need a basic WiFi network set up, the tablet and the printer need to
be on the same network, you can't have a 4G tablet and then have a printer kind of just
plugged in by itself, it has to be a normal network, and they have to share it and be
discoverable.
For more information on the Star SP700 or to purchase, please visit us at POSGuys.com.
Thanks!