A printer attached to one POS terminal can be shared with other POS terminals, e.g. All POS terminals can use one printer to print customer receipts, rather than having a receipt printer attached to each POS terminal. Any of the items that can be printed by POS (tickets, credit card receipts, customer receipts, food vouchers, till slips and journals) can be re-directed to a shared printer.

Setting up shared printers

Sharing a printer to print tickets

Most set ups do not share the printing of tickets to avoid fraudulent activity. However, if you need to share printing of tickets between POS terminals:

1. Attach the shared printer to one of the POS terminals.
2. Ensure the Workstation definition for each POS terminal is updated to define the shared printer.
3. Ensure that the POS terminal that has the shared printer attached is powered on and has been logged onto at least once.

Important! The POS Terminal that has the shared printer attached MUST be powered on, and MUST have been logged on to POS at least once (that is, you only need to log on the first time you turn this POS terminal on - you can log straight off again if required). This is required to ensure that POS has the required information to print correctly.

Sharing a printer to print receipts

You may wish to have a printer share the printing of receipts. Consider the example set up below for configuration details:

The diagram above shows how POS Box01 and Box02 have their own ticket and credit card receipt printers attached, but use a shared printer attached to POS Box03 to print customer receipts.

Workstation Maintenance for POS terminals that will use the shared printer (Box01 and Box02)

Set up Box01 and Box02 POS terminals to use the shared printer:

• Printer 1 - normal printer definition for tickets and credit card receipts.
• Printer 2 - define the printer type that the customer receipts will print on (i.e. the printer type of printer 3). Set the Port to "To File" and the file name where the print queue will be found.

Note: even though the printer is not attached to this POS terminal, the printer type must be defined so that the shared items are printed in the correct printer format.

Print Customer Receipts on: - ensure this is set to print to Printer 2 (the shared printer).

Workstation Maintenance for the POS terminal that has the shared printer attached (Box03).

Set up the Box03 POS terminal, to use the shared printer:

• Printer 1 - normal printer definition for tickets and credit card receipts.
• Printer 2 - define the printer type that the customer receipts will print on (i.e. the printer type of printer 3). Set the Port to "To File" and the folder name where the print queue will be found.
• Printer 3 - normal printer definition for customer receipts.
• Shared Printer Attached - ensure this is set to the printer number for the shared printer (Printer 3 in our example). Set the folder name where the print queue is found.

Warning: Multiple printers must NOT be set up on the same port, this will cause a conflict when printing to the port and the print may fail.

See also

Using shared printers at POS