Kitchen printers in PointLit: stations, routes and the not-printed alert
Each item sent from a check prints on the printers of its kitchen station, and a ticket that does not print raises an alert that stays on screen until someone deals with it.
You set this up once for each shop in Manage, under Kitchen stations and printers, which Restaurant settings also links to. A station is a place in the kitchen, such as the grill or the bar. A route says which station makes each category or product.
Add a station
- In Manage, open Kitchen stations and printers and choose the Shop.
- Press Add station and type its Name, and its Arabic name for tickets printed in Arabic.
- Choose its Kind: Printer, Kitchen screen, or Printer and kitchen screen.
- Choose the Ticket language: The business's language, The second language, or Both languages.
- If you want, choose a Backup station, tick Prints the pre-bills (one station per shop), or tick Expo station (one per shop).
- Press Save.
Add the station's printers
- Open Printers of the station and press Add printer. Every printer of a station prints all of that station's tickets.
- Network printer: type its Address on the shop's network, such as 192.168.1.50, and its Port, from 9100 to 9109.
- Printer in Windows on a till: choose the till it is installed on and type the Printer name in Windows exactly as Windows lists it. It must be installed on the computer of the shop's hub till (see the next sections).
- Paper: 58 mm or 80 mm. Copies: from 1 to 5 of each ticket.
- Printer type: Thermal (picture) prints the ticket as an image, so Arabic prints as it looks on screen. Impact (text, code page) prints text through code page 864 and needs that code page's number from the printer's manual.
Send items to stations
Under Routes, Route the category sends a whole category to a station, and Route products sends single products. A product's route wins over its category's. A route can also give its items a default course. Press Save routes. While there are no routes, nothing is sent to the kitchen.
Print a test ticket
On a till with the PointLit Windows app, press Print a test ticket on a station. Each of the station's printers prints a ticket marked TEST, and the screen lists how each one went. Do it after adding a printer, and whenever a printer was moved or changed its address.
Which device prints
- A till with the PointLit Windows app prints straight to a network printer, or hands the ticket to the shop's hub till when there is one.
- A phone or a browser tab cannot print by itself. Its tickets reach the hub till through PointLit's server, and the hub prints them, so a hub till must be running.
- A printer installed in Windows prints only from the hub till's computer. A ticket sent to it from another till does not print and raises the not-printed alert.
- If the hub took a ticket and then went silent for a minute, a till that can reach the printer prints it itself, marked COPY - may be duplicate, because the hub may have printed it already.
The not-printed alert
When a ticket does not print, an alert names the station and the table, with the reason, such as The printer is out of paper. It stays on the register and on the kitchen screen until the ticket prints or someone presses Retry, Send to backup (the station's backup station prints it), or Mark handled. A till printing straight to a printer tries again by itself for ten minutes before it waits for a person. A device cannot sign out, or switch business, while its tickets are unprinted: they must print first, or be marked handled.
Questions and answers
- Do Arabic kitchen tickets print correctly?
- On a printer set to Thermal (picture), yes: the ticket goes to the printer as an image, so Arabic names print as they look on screen. An impact printer prints text through code page 864; print a test ticket to check it before service.
- Can a waiter's phone print kitchen tickets?
- Not by itself. A phone's tickets print through the shop's hub till. With no hub till running, the ticket raises the not-printed alert after about 20 seconds, and you can retry it or mark it handled.
- What does the backup station do?
- It is where a ticket goes when someone presses Send to backup on the not-printed alert, for example when the grill printer has run out of paper and the bar printer can take over. It is not used by itself.