Paper: loading, running out and what to buy

What paper to buy

80 mm wide thermal receipt paper, the standard till roll. It is sold everywhere that sells point of sale supplies, and any brand works.

Two things to check:

• Thermal, not plain. These printers have no ink and no ribbon. They work by heating the paper, so ordinary paper comes out blank
• Roll diameter. Check the maximum roll size in your printer's manual before buying bulk. A roll that is too fat will not let the cover close

Tip: buy more than you think you need. A chit uses roughly 15 to 20 cm of paper, so a busy store gets through a roll faster than it expects.

Which way round does it go?

Thermal paper only prints on one side, and it is easy to load upside down.

1. Open the cover
2. Drop the roll in so the paper feeds off the bottom and towards you, not over the top
3. Pull a few centimetres out past the cutter
4. Close the cover firmly until it clicks on both sides

If chits come out completely blank, the roll is almost certainly in upside down. Take it out, flip it over, and try again.

What happens when it runs out

Buddi notices on its own. You will see Printer is out of paper in the order queue and in Printer Settings.

Chits stop being sent to the printer while it is empty. This is deliberate. If we kept sending them, they would be discarded by the printer and those orders would be lost with nothing to show for it.

Load a new roll and everything waiting prints automatically, in order, within a few seconds.

You never need to go and find the orders that did not print.

Running low

Printer paper is low appears before you actually run out, so there is usually time to swap the roll between customers rather than in the middle of a rush.

It is worth keeping a spare roll within reach of the printer rather than in a stockroom.

The chit printed but it is faint or patchy

That is usually the paper rather than the printer. See Chits are printing but they look wrong.