How printing works in Calisto

Calisto prints receipts, kitchen tickets and labels on ordinary receipt printers, the kind sold for any till. You do not need a printer bought from us, and there is nothing to install: no driver, no bridge, no box on your counter.

What matters far more than which printer you buy is how you connect it. The same printer behaves differently on a USB cable than on your Wi-Fi, and nobody usually explains that. This page does.

The three ways to connect a printer

Plugged into a tablet or computer

A USB cable, or Bluetooth, from the printer to the device taking the order. The device asks you once for permission to use that printer, and remembers.

On your shop’s Wi-Fi

The printer joins the same network as your tablets. Any device in the shop can print to it, and you type the printer’s address once; it prints its own address on its self-test slip.

Fetches its own jobs from Calisto

The printer is on your Wi-Fi and asks Calisto for work over the internet. Nothing else has to be switched on. This is the one that prints when the shop is empty. Star calls it CloudPRNT; Epson calls it Server Direct Print.

What every printer does, whichever way you connect it

These come from the printer itself. Most receipt printers do all of them; a small mobile printer often has no cutter and no drawer connection. Calisto detects which when you plug it in, and the printer's own page in Calisto lists them.

• Prints receipts
• Cuts the paper itself
• Opens the cash drawer
• Prints a logo or QR code

What changes with the connection

This is the part that is easy to get wrong, because the printer is identical in all three columns.

| What you get | Plugged into a tablet or computer | On your shop’s Wi-Fi | Fetches its own jobs from Calisto | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Prints when no tablet is open | No | No | Yes | | Keeps working if the internet drops | Yes | Yes | No | | Works from an iPad | No | Yes | Yes |

• Plugged into a tablet or computer · Prints when no tablet is open: It is plugged into one tablet, so that tablet has to be on and signed in.
• Plugged into a tablet or computer · Works from an iPad: Safari cannot reach a plugged-in printer. Android tablets and computers can.
• On your shop’s Wi-Fi · Prints when no tablet is open: Any device in the shop can print to it, but one has to have Calisto open.
• Fetches its own jobs from Calisto · Keeps working if the internet drops: It fetches jobs over the internet, so they wait until the connection is back.

Which should I choose?

There is no single right answer, which is why we show you the table instead of picking for you.

• If you already own a receipt printer, start by plugging it in. It will work,

and Calisto sets it up for you. You should not have to tell us anything about it except what to call it.

• If your tills are iPads, Safari cannot talk to a plugged-in printer at all.

A Wi-Fi printer is your option, and it works in every browser.

• If you need tickets to print when nobody is at a screen (a kitchen during

a rush, an order that arrives while the counter tablet is asleep), you want a printer that fetches its own jobs.

To print when no tablet is open, and to print from an iPad, put this printer on your Wi-Fi instead. Most receipt printers support it, and nothing else changes.

Setting one up

1. Open Printers on the device the printer is attached to.
2. Choose how it connects. Options your device cannot use stay on screen, greyed

out, with the reason.

1. For a plugged-in printer, your browser asks which printer Calisto may use.

That permission stays in that browser, on that device.

1. We tell you what we detected (the model, the paper width, whether it cuts,

whether it can kick a cash drawer) and print a test slip.

1. If we did not recognise the printer we ask one thing: did the slip fill the

paper, or did the lines wrap? Wrapped lines mean narrower paper than we assumed, and one tap fixes it.

What if my printer is not recognised?

It still works. An unrecognised printer is set up on the settings that suit most receipt printers (80mm paper, ESC/POS, a cutter and a cash drawer), and anything wrong with that guess is visible on the test slip.

Tell us the model and we will add it, so the next operator with that printer is not asked at all.

Printing documents is a different thing

This page is about receipt printers, the ones with a paper roll. Printing an invoice, a purchase order or a document on ordinary A4 or Letter paper goes to your normal office printer through your own print dialog, with all the drivers and settings you already have. You do not set those up in Calisto.