Is anyone using thermal Printer (continuous feed printer) with any success

Cathy Wilbur

Well Known Member
We have a need to attempt to use a thermal printer (a continuous feed printer) with thermal paper to print cash receipts at the wicket. We want to connect the printer to our createform server and then print our createform receipts to this printer.

Here is the POS (Point Of Sale) printer we are attempting to connect to our Createform server.

Epson TM-T88V Direct Thermal Printer

We created a detailed Cash Receipts project to test against this continuous feed printer. The project was defined under Create!Form 6.3 because this project is coming from a third-party system that does not use JDE/Oneworld. I have been unable to test my project because we received a printer to test with but it did not have an ethernet connection so we had to send it back. We tried to attach an external print server to the printer but the two were incompatable.

These are some of our concerns
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1) Printer needs to have an ethernet printer connection.

2) Printer needs to allow us to install a postscript print driver for the printer.

3) Since this printer uses continuous feed paper and createform has defined page sizes we need to find a way to stop printing when the receipt is done. How do you have a defined page size with a printer using continuous feed paper?

4) Need to be able to connect this printer to our network so that the createform server can connect to this printer via IP address.

5) Printer needs its own power source bar to connect to an outlet. DO NOT intend to connect this POS printer to a PC we are only accessing the printer by IP address.

Would like to hear from anyone that has used any thermal printer with createform with any success.
 
I haven't worked with these printers but here are my thoughts based on what you've said;

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1) Printer needs to have an Ethernet printer connection. THE PRINTER NEEDS TO BE ACCESSIBLE SOMEHOW TO THE CFORMSERVER. IT'S GOT TO BE ATTACHED TO SOMETHING, DOCUMENTATION FOR THAT PRINTER INDICATES IT HAS SEVERAL CONNECTION OPTIONS.

2) Printer needs to allow us to install a postscript print driver for the printer. NOT NECESSARILY. CREATE!FORM V6.X CAN OUTPUT TO PCL PRINTERS.

3) Since this printer uses continuous feed paper and createform has defined page sizes we need to find a way to stop printing when the receipt is done. How do you have a defined page size with a printer using continuous feed paper? NOT SURE THIS IS A PROBLEM. WHY WOULDN'T THE CFORM PROJECT DEFINE THE PAGE SIZE? WHEN IT FINISHES THE "PAGE" THAT'S THE PAGE SIZE.

4) Need to be able to connect this printer to our network so that the createform server can connect to this printer via IP address. THE TECHNICAL REFERENCE GUIDE I FOUND SEEMS TO INDICATE YOU CAN CONNECT THIS PRINTER VIA 10/100BASE-T LAN.

5) Printer needs its own power source bar to connect to an outlet. DO NOT intend to connect this POS printer to a PC we are only accessing the printer by IP address. AGAIN SKIMMING THROUGH THE DOCUMENTATION IT SOUNDS LIKE THE PRINTER CAN HAVE AN EXTERNAL POWER SOURCE (NOT VIA CONNECTION TO PC).


Karen.
 
Biggest problem here is we want the paper to stop when it is done printing but Createform indicated that we need to have a defined page size but continuous paper has no defined page size. So we are hoping that the paper will stop printing and not roll forward because in Createform you CANNOT define a form WITHOUT a defined page size. Once we get this new printer in will be testing this out.
 
Here is another idea...

Does the thermal printer have some type of "design" software where you can configure what the output looks like? If yes, can you use Create!transform to extract the JDE PDF data you need and then pass it to the Thermal printer so it formats and prints to the printer?


Karen.
 
We created a Createform project using the XML reciept input file. Now we are waiting for the printer to arrive to test it out.

The receipt file being generated is coming from an application that is a third party application which is not a JDE application. So an XML receipt file gets sent to Createform version 6.3. Once the new printer arrives we can test the project out.

Not sure that Transform will be applicable here because file has no metadata and is not in PDF format.

We use Createform 3.x, some version of Createform 3 for all our JDE projects. We use Createform 6.x, some version of Createform 6 for all our third-party (non JDE) projects.
 
Can you use Create!transform to extract the data you need from the XML file and write it to a text file in a format the the TM-T88V printer will understand? You would have a Cdirector project that calls the Ctransform project and then sends the output to the printer.

I found information in their Technical References Guide which is located here >>> http://pos.epson.com/developers/techresdetails.htm?productpk=642 (it's too large to attach to this post).


Karen.
 
Thanks. as soon as the printer gets here am going to check out the transform.
 
I had downloaded some of this information previously from this site you gave me but I redownloaded everything again including two of the print drivers. Just reviewing the manual now until printer comes.
 
We finally got the new thermal Printer

Manufacturer: epson
Model: TM-T88V-325
Operating System: Windows XP
Epson Product Model: C31CA85325
Driver Version: EPSON TM-T88V Receipt E4
Interface Used: Ethernet
Print Driver: Advanced Print Driver Version 4 for Windows
Forms Software: Create!form Designer version 6

Tried to design my form and print to the printer using Create!form Designer but the printer driver does not seem to support postscript. I changed the printer to go thru Transform but we cannot seem to properly format the data. It looks awful.

1) Has anyone had some success formatting their data using transform? I need to print a graphic logo but this will not happen with transform. Was hopping to get designer to work.

2) Does anyone know if POS (Point of Sale) printer Epson TM-T88V-325 has a postscript print driver? I checked all over the web and have not come across any such driver?
 
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