Printing receipts... with a barcode printer?
By: Camille Meehan - 4/8/2015

Alex Smith wanted to know about printing on thermal paper using a thermal barcode printer. Our general answer is that you can but probably shouldn't. Below is an image of why.

Barcode printers often have printheads that operate at a hotter temperature than receipt printer printheads. We suspect that is because receipt printers usually need to print faster, sometimes up to nearly 12" per second. Barcode printers typically lean towards the 5" per second speed but can go faster or slower depending on the quality of the printer.

In the example above you can see that the print head gets so hot on the large black squares that it smears black residual marks down the paper. If you are printing text on the barcode printer it may work for you as the printhead would get a chance to cool down between lines of print.

Another reason you would want to avoid using a barcode printer to print receipts is that the core on a roll of barcode labels is different from the core on a receipt. Most receipt printers operate with drop-in loading meaning that there is no mechanism holding the receipt paper in place aside from the walls of the media bay. Barcode label printers in contrast have brackets to hold the roll of labels in place while printing. This helps keep heavy label rolls from dragging and scuffing along the bottom of the barcode printer. Core sizes for desktop printers like the GK420d are about 1 inch and for industrial printers are around 4 inches. (Not that we think many people would consider printing receipts with a large industrial barcode printer... but you get the idea, very large core size)

Another issue when printing receipts on a barcode printer is that receipt printers are designed to print long variable pages while barcode labels need to be configured to print a specific label size. Barcode printer configuration can sometimes take a while depending on what printer you have and what barcode label software you are using. Most point of sale software can pretty easily link into a 50 column receipt layout and get printing.

Hope you enjoyed this unorthodox look at a barcode printer printing receipts. We definitely feel that you can do it but probably shouldn't. Have you used a barcode printer to print receipts? How is it working for you?

Camille Meehan, POSLady since 2011, loves all sorts of printing and so she ends up writing lots of post about... printing! She adores card printing, Xerography, offset and perhaps more relevant, printing in the point of sale and data capture industry. Read more by Camille at her card printing blog <a href="/blog/card-printing-offsets" title="Card Printing on POSGuys.com">here</a>

Printing receipts... with a barcode printer? By: Camille Meehan - 4/8/2015

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Printing receipts... with a barcode printer?
By: Camille Meehan - 4/8/2015