| ▲ | Show HN: Thermal Receipt Printers – Markdown and Web UI(github.com) |
| 80 points by howlett 4 days ago | 30 comments |
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| ▲ | Spunkie 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I've not much to say on the thermal printer part of this but the extensions they did to markdown are great. They had me double taking for a few seconds thinking they might be real markdown because they make so much sense. [align=center] Center-align the following text (also left, right)
[qr=https://...] Generate and print a QR code
Deprecating align in html was a mistake. |
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| ▲ | sheept 13 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Since align is only deprecated and not removed, and Markdown is a superset of HTML (at least for CommonMark and GFM), it would be valid markdown to just use <div align=center> to center text (not like there's such a thing as invalid Markdown) | |
| ▲ | xp84 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It’s funny, after all the work that was done to decouple content from presentation, 90% of the markup I’ve seen in every codebase this decade is using Styled Components anyway, which commingles them in the source code anyway. | | |
| ▲ | bigbuppo 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Oh man... the popularity of the tailwind css framework. I have big-o Opinions on that, but screw it, if it helps people get things done quickly, then I'm all for it. The semantic xml/html dweebs set us back a solid decade. |
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| ▲ | bigbuppo 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I actually use my printers thank you very much. Even bought one of those bank teller slip printer things and a few boxes check-sized slips. I use them for time tracking and todo list. I didn't go totally crazy, though, and stopped before getting too deep into "...and then OCR them using the check scanner" because I remembered I was already keeping track of start/stop times in a database when printing the slips. |
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| ▲ | baby_souffle 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Can you share more about this workflow? I have only recently started to appreciate how my special blend of adhd can work best with there's a physical component to actually _seeing_ the work to be done vs stashed away in a jira, exclusively. | | |
| ▲ | bigbuppo 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | The TL;DR is that it's a physical kanban board mixed with a time clock. I place them on a ticket rack hanging on the wall above my monitor. It like the ones you see at restaurants... extruded aluminum... filled with marbles... slot on the bottom. If my board is full, I can't (or at least shouldn't) accept more work. It also is an immediate reminder of what needs to be done. The physical process of marking a ticket done and putting it in the finished pile helps to satisfy that need to have a visible sign that work has been done. |
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| ▲ | andruby 41 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This comes so timely. I bought the receipt printer last week and a large metal sheet to hold them magnetically to the wall for a real life todo kanban board |
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| ▲ | 2muchcoffeeman 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| What’s a cheap but ok thermal printer? The brand mentioned in this repo? I wanted to setup https://www.colonnes.com but their recommendations were quite expensive. |
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| ▲ | VTimofeenko 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I got an Epson TM-T88IIIP for about 40 bucks used. The whole line seems to have decent Linux drivers | |
| ▲ | wut42 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I recently got the YHD-8390 on Aliexpress for around 100$, works pretty well. Connects by Ethernet, USB and Wifi. Having plenty of fun with it. | |
| ▲ | micw 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | For labels I use Phomomo. Quite cheap. I wrote some python code to drive it. |
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| ▲ | frizzle-chan 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This rules! I've been working on a similar project where friends DM a discord bot and it prints out a "fax" on my thermal printer. One thing I solved differently: I rendered the fax as an image using PIL and then I just print the image. That way I can support arbitrary Unicode and can lay things out independently of what my printer is capable of. Example rendered fax: https://github.com/frizzle-chan/fax.frizzle.lol/blob/main/fa... |
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| ▲ | owobeid 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I had started working on something similar a few months back but as a collection of CLI utilities. The first was a todo list printer where the todos are written in a YAML file.
It includes fields for the name of the list and the date. I also started working on a Sudoku printer (which I think is only possible on 80mm paper).
But I completely forgot about the entire thing after coming back from vacation. You've inspired be to get back to working on it :D As an aside, are there any good recommendations for a wifi/bluetooth printer using 80mm paper that doesn't break the bank? I initially bought the Munbyn ITPP098P but it being USB only is a bit unergonomic. |
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| ▲ | wut42 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Already replied the same in another comment, but I recently got the "YHD-8390" on Aliexpress for around 100$ - has wifi, usb, ethernet, and works pretty well. |
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| ▲ | speakbits 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Called me out with that first sentence |
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| ▲ | dematz 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| these things seem like too much fun, someone made a gleam printer library (https://hexdocs.pm/escpos/) and suddenly everyone on the discord is buying a printer... |
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| ▲ | plussed_reader 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I troubleshoot thermal printers for work and the error is rarely in the hardware. I have no issue with this work request; TPs are deterministic and predictable. |
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| ▲ | thomascountz 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Obligatory "be careful with that poison paper" warning![1] [1]: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... |
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| ▲ | fy20 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | An alternative to consider are dot matrix / impact printers. They are used in kitchens, as heat sensitive paper doesn't work well there. It's just plain paper and an ink ribbon. Same underlying protocol as thermal printers, so the code is mostly plug and play. They often can print in two colours (red and black). And sound like the 1980s. | | |
| ▲ | user_7832 26 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I... thought dot matrix printers were some of the worst for releasing particulate matter into the air? Especially ultra fine particles? |
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| ▲ | samlinnfer 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You can buy phenol free paper https://www.pca.state.mn.us/business-with-us/bpa-and-bps-in-... | | |
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| ▲ | anthonySs 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| would be cool if it supported basic html/css |
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| ▲ | wut42 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | An easy way to do this, which I use to print recipes with my TP, is to render the page as an image. I use dom-to-image for that. | |
| ▲ | JellyBeanThief 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I can print webpages straight to my Epson TM-T20IV. My web browser just sends it to CUPS. | | |
| ▲ | wut42 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | thermal printers are centuries backwards from anything like CUPS. |
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| ▲ | atonse 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Can we not print full pdf type stuff with thermal printers? I just bought one a couple weeks ago actually. |
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| ▲ | sayamqazi 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | its slower than text mode. basically you can print anything as long as you can convert it to monochrome bitmap before sending. But the thermal printers have anotehr mode which prints extremely fast if your data is textual with rudimentary formatting like order slips. | | |
| ▲ | 1e1a 23 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I believe the speed also depends on how many activated dots there are per line in the image, as thermal print heads often have a limit to the number of elements that can be activated at once. |
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