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Choosing a thermal printer for a café or restaurant: 80 mm, ESC/POS and Turkish characters

Hardware6 min readari adisyon Editorial
Thermal printer and paper roll in a restaurant kitchen

There are dozens of thermal printers on the market and nearly every box says "suitable for restaurants". In practice a café or restaurant needs answers to a handful of questions: paper width, command language, Turkish character support, connection type and, at the till, a cash drawer.

This guide answers them one by one. For an item-by-item list to use before buying, see our thermal printer buying checklist.

1. Paper width: 80 mm is the standard

A kitchen ticket carries item name, quantity, note and table together. 58 mm paper is too narrow; long item names wrap and legibility drops. ari adisyon's ticket layout is written for 80 mm paper with 42 characters per line. On a 58 mm printer the lines shift, so 58 mm models are not supported.

2. Command language: ESC/POS

Tickets are sent to the printer as raw commands, and the common language for those commands is ESC/POS. Any brand that speaks ESC/POS works; you are not tied to one manufacturer.

There is one exception to watch for: some brands do not use ESC/POS out of the box. The Star TSP100/TSP143 series ships in "Star Line Mode", and some Bixolon models ship with a different emulation. These must be switched to ESC/POS mode with the device's own utility, or they print gibberish.

3. Turkish characters: the WPC1254 code page

If "Türk Kahvesi" prints as "T?rk Kahvesi", the code page is the problem. ari adisyon sends Turkish text using the WPC1254 (Windows-1254) code page. When you print the printer's own self-test page you should see a `WPC1254 (Turkish)` line; on many models it sits at position 91, but clones may order the table differently.

Must-have features in a thermal printer

The non-negotiables in a receipt printer.

4. Auto-cutter

At peak time tickets come out back to back. Tearing them by hand costs time and leaves the next ticket half-printed. An auto-cutter is not a luxury, it is a requirement.

5. Connection: network or USB?

How much the connection type matters depends on how you run the system:

  • Cloud setup: The printer agent on the computer the printer is attached to pulls tickets from the server. The printer can be USB or network. The agent finds printers on the network itself; you pick from a list instead of typing an IP.
  • On-premise setup: The server is inside the venue and connects to the printer directly over the network on port 9100. This needs an Ethernet (RJ45) port and a fixed IP for the printer from your router.
  • Browser printing: To try things right away without installing an agent. An open browser tab prints the tickets; if the tab closes, the kitchen goes quiet, which is why we don't recommend it as a permanent setup.
Comparison of printer connection in cloud and on-premise setups

What the connection needs depends on the setup.

6. The till printer and the cash drawer

The cash drawer plugs into the till printer's RJ11 drawer port, not into the computer. The printer sends an electrical pulse and the latch opens. When buying a drawer, make sure it matches the printer's drawer voltage (12V/24V).

In ari adisyon the drawer opens only when a bill closes with a cash payment, after the receipt prints. It does not open for card payments, because that money never goes into the drawer. For things like giving change there is an "Open drawer" button at the till, and every use is logged.

7. Durability for the kitchen

Kitchens are hot, steamy and greasy. Pick a closed, dust-protected body with easy paper loading (lift the lid, drop the roll in). For the bar and till, quietness and a compact footprint matter more.

How many printers do you need?

The system has three stations: kitchen, bar and till. One printer can print all three separately. If you buy two, the usual split is kitchen + till; if the bar is elsewhere, add a third. In a busy kitchen you can also assign two printers to one station; the ticket prints on both as copies.

Frequently asked questions

Will a brand that isn't on your list work?

A printer that speaks ESC/POS, uses 80 mm paper and supports WPC1254 will very likely work. We list the models we have tested on the hardware page.

What should I do first after setting it up?

Print a test ticket. If the Turkish line is right, the code page is right; if you see question marks, set the code page to WPC1254 in the printer's settings.

Conclusion

The right thermal printer fits in four words: 80 mm, ESC/POS, WPC1254 and auto-cutter. At the till, add a drawer port. A printer with these features works regardless of brand. For compatible models and setup steps, see our hardware page.