Step 7 — Printers

Each store has a default printer; each till can pick its own in step 8. This page explains the three ways a printer can reach zrsPOS, and gives the exact clicks for each one.

First: does zrsPOS print at all?

Step 7 opens with one question, Who prints the receipts?

zrsPOS prints them — the normal answer. A receipt comes out at the till as each document is issued. The rest of this page is for you.
We print from SAGE ourselves — zrsPOS issues the document and stops there. Choose this if your own system already prints from SAGE.

Choosing the second one changes real behaviour, so it is worth being clear about what goes away:

	With printing off
At the till	Nothing prints. No receipt, no credit note.
Re-printing	Not available anywhere — not in the admin, not on the POS tile, not on the order screen. The buttons are gone rather than present and refusing.
Printers	Not needed. Step 7 and step 8 are satisfied with none, and go-live stops asking.
Print tests	Not offered.
Tax Free forms	Also not printed. The form is issued with Global Blue as usual, but zrsPOS will not put it on paper — you must print it yourself.
Warnings	No "printer offline" or "receipts waiting" warnings, because no print job is ever created.

Your printers are not deleted when you switch, so you can change your mind and they come back.

The rest of this page assumes zrsPOS is printing.

Which way should I use?

Your situation	Use
A SUNMI or other Android POS with a built-in printer	Print app
A USB printer plugged into the POS tablet, or into a small Android box	Print app
An Epson network printer (TM-m30III, TM-T88…)	Pull (Server Direct Print)
A network printer of another brand that speaks ESC/POS	Direct

Print app and Pull need nothing changed on the store router and expose nothing to the internet. Direct needs a port opened on the router and is meant for demos and tests.

Supported printers

Print app — the built-in printer of any SUNMI Android POS, any USB printer that follows the USB printer class, and any LAN printer on port 9100. See The print app.
Pull — Epson TM-m30III (recommended), TM-m30II, TM-m30, TM-T88VI/VII and other Epson models that offer Server Direct Print.
Direct — any network printer that speaks ESC/POS, 80 mm or 58 mm (Qian, Xprinter, Star…), plus the Epson ePOS-Print models.

Adding a printer

In the Shopify admin open zrsPOS → Setup guide → 7. Printers, press Add printer and pick the model, the store and the connection. What follows depends on the connection you chose.

Print app (SUNMI, USB, or the zrsPOS box)

Setup guide → 7. Printers → Add printer.
Under Connection choose Print app — on the POS device or the zrsPOS box.
Press Generate the pairing code. A QR code and a 6-digit code appear, valid for 10 minutes.
On the POS device open zrsPOS Print and either press Scan the QR or type the shop and the code by hand.
The app detects the printer and its paper width and registers it. Within a few seconds the printer appears in the list in zrsPOS. Press Print test on its page.

The full instructions, including installing the app and USB printers, are on The print app.

Pull — Epson Server Direct Print

The printer connects to zrsPOS itself, from inside the store, and asks every few seconds "any receipts to print?". Nothing is exposed to the internet and it works with a dynamic IP or CGNAT.

Where the Server URL and the ID are

They are generated by zrsPOS when you save the printer, and they are different for every printer. To see them:

In the Shopify admin open zrsPOS.
Open Setup guide (in the left menu of the app) and click 7. Printers.
In the Printers list, click the name of the printer. Its own page opens.
On that page find the section How to connect this printer. It is open already when the printer has never been connected; if it is closed, press Step-by-step guide (printer, router, DDNS) to open it.
The first two fields in that section are exactly what you need:
- Server URL — the full address the printer fetches receipts from. It already includes the access key.
- ID — identifies this printer. Each has a Copy button on the right. Press Copy, then paste it into the printer's page.

Keep the zrsPOS tab open in one browser tab and the printer's page in another, so you can copy from one and paste into the other.

Finding the printer's own address

Power the printer off, then on again while holding the Feed button. It prints a slip with its IP address, for example 192.168.1.180.

Configuring the printer

Do this on a computer or tablet on the same network as the printer.

Open http://<printer-IP>/ in a browser, using the IP from the slip. The Epson configuration page opens. It may ask for a user and password: on Epson TM printers the user is epson and the password is printed on the label on the printer (on older models it is epson).
In the left menu find Server Direct Print. On some models it sits inside ePOS-Print.
Set it to Enable.
In Server URL paste the Server URL you copied from zrsPOS. Paste it whole, including https:// and everything after the last slash.
In ID paste the ID you copied from zrsPOS. It must match exactly, with no spaces before or after.
Set Interval to 5 seconds. (A larger number means receipts come out later.)
Press Send or Submit, then Reset or Restart if the printer asks for it.
Go back to the printer's page in zrsPOS and press Refresh. Within about 10 seconds the status changes to Connected with the time of the last contact.
Press Print test. A test receipt must come out.

No Server Direct Print option? Check for an Epson firmware update for your model, or use the print app with the printer connected by USB, or switch this printer to Direct.

The ID and the URL are stored inside the printer. If you delete the printer in zrsPOS and create it again, both change and must be entered in the printer again.

Direct — zrsPOS sends to the store

zrsPOS sends receipts to the store over the internet. This requires a port forward on the store router and exposes the printer, so use it for demos and tests rather than a live shop.

The guide on the printer's page (same place as above: Setup guide → 7. Printers → the printer's name → How to connect this printer) gives you, each with a Copy button:

the port-forward rule to create on the router, with the internal port filled in for the protocol you chose;
the address and port zrsPOS will send to;
if you use zrsPOS DDNS, the hostname, username and password to put in the router's dynamic-DNS page, and the update URL. The address then fills in by itself.

The address can also be a fixed public IP from your ISP, or a public DDNS name you keep up to date yourself (No-IP, DynDNS…). Pick which one on the printer's settings, under How we know the store's address.

Status, and when a printer is offline

The printer's page shows one of:

Status	What it means
Connected	The printer contacted us; the time of the last contact is shown.
Waiting for the printer	Created but never contacted us. Follow the guide again.
No contact	It used to work. Check power, paper and network.
No paper / Cover open / Printer error	Reported by the print app. Fix it on the device.
Address pending / Address missing	A direct printer whose address is not known yet.

Receipts for a pull or print-app printer wait in its queue and print on its next contact. Home and the POS tile warn when a printer with receipts waiting has not contacted us for over 2 minutes. A receipt that waits more than 4 hours is dropped rather than printed hours late; reprint it from Documents if you still need it. A print the printer never confirmed is retried up to 3 times, then marked failed. Print history is kept for 30 days.

Use Print test on any printer, including pull and print-app printers: the test goes through the same queue as a real receipt, so it also tells you whether the printer is polling.