If you use the Star Micronics SP200 receipt printer, an alternative to setting up a “generic” printer is to download and install the driver software for this device http://www.starmicronics.com/support/default.aspx . Choose your device, operating system, and language, then install it. It will work very nicely with EG without having to create a “receipt” template. When you begin the installation process, choose SP212 from the list as the model and LPT1 as the port, then Automatic Install. To get the tear-off space, go to Properties for the SP212 printer, click the Print Options tab, then select Form Feed/Tear Bar in the Cut Action drop-down.

Peter E. Johnson

Ours went from giving a huge space below the receipt to making us press feed
to get the whole receipt out, what do we need to do?

Go to the Printers and Faxes option in Windows. This is likely visible from your Start menu, but you may need to go through the Control Panel to get to it. Right click on the printer in that window and choose Properties.

In the tab labelled "Print Options", there's a box captioned "Cut Action", with an entry for "End Page / End Doc". I get your behavior if that is set to "Form Feed / Form Feed". You want to change that so that it says "Form Feed / Tear Bar". Then Apply the change.

While in that interface, you may also want to select the "Device Settings" tab and make sure the Form to Tray Assignment, FRICTION field is set to "66mm x Receipt".and that the Paper Type is set to "Receipt".

From the GPLS Knowledgebase…

Go into "Printers and Faxes." Right-click on Star SP212 and choose "Properties." Click the "Ports" tab. Making sure its COM port is highlighted, click "Configure Port." Change "Flow control" setting to "Hardware." Click "OK" to save.

I discovered (and solved!) the problem with getting the Star SP200-2 serial receipt printer to work with the Staff Client.

We had set printer dip switches 6 and 7 to "off" (1200 baud) in order to work correctly with printing long lists of items in vendor product name removed. Also, serial printers were not installed as a printer in Windows - a requirement for vendor product name removed - but must be installed in Windows to work with Evergreen.

I returned these switches to "on" and installed the printer using the SP212 driver from the http://www.starmicronics.com driver download page (being sure to select the port as the proper COM port, not LPT). (I don't know of a good way to tell which COM port is in use for a printer on a given PC, so I just picked COM1 and it happened to work - but I suppose another COM port might be the one in use for someone's printer, in which case a trial-and-error method would be needed to tell which COM port to select.)

Everything prints just fine with this driver selected.

(One caveat: If you have a serial printer that you currently use with vendor product name removed for receipt printing, you can't do this ahead of time if you want to continue to print receipts through vendor product name removed. We'll have to do this at the last minute - either late Friday afternoon after closing or early Tuesday morning. Fortunately, it doesn't take long to do.)

- Roberta Wilder

Switched off printer & disconnected serial cable. Its dip switches are located under snap-in cover next to serial connector. Set dip switches 6 and 7 to 'off' (down); setting represents data transmission rate of 1200 bps. Reconnected cable & switched on printer.

Opened Windows Device Manager and, under "Ports," went into "Properties" tab of the COM port. Chose the "Port Settings" tab and changed the "Bits Per Second" value to 1200. Saved settings.

Update: Reset printer dip switches back to default (9600 baud) and Windows COM port "Bits per second" back to 9600.

Still in Windows Device Manager, in the COM port's settings tab, set the "Flow control" option from "None" to "Hardware." Save settings.