How printing works in AirQR

AirQR prints kitchen order tickets (KOTs), bills and cash reports on standard 58 mm and 80 mm ESC/POS thermal printers, the usual Indian restaurant printers (Epson, TVS, Posiflex, Everycom, Rugtek, Xprinter, Retsol, Hoin and 58 mm Bluetooth handhelds). Printing is included in every plan from Starter up, and in the free trial. Printers are set up by an owner or manager in Settings → Printing & screens with the Add printer wizard, which helps you find the printer (USB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or already installed on a computer) and prints a test page. See Set up a LAN / Wi-Fi printer and the AirQR Printer Helper and Set up a USB or Bluetooth printer. Each printer shows as a card with its connection in plain words and Print test page, Edit and Remove.

What does AirQR print automatically?

Once a printer is added with its auto-print switch on, AirQR prints without anyone pressing a button:

• KOTs (kitchen tickets) print the moment a round reaches the kitchen: when a waiter or cashier presses Send to kitchen on the POS, when a guest's QR order arrives (or when staff Accept it, if QR orders need approval), and when an online order is accepted. Each round on a table prints as its own KOT, marked Round 2, Round 3 and so on.
• Bills / tax invoices print when a check is settled (closed with payment), on every bill printer with auto-print on. Online orders print their bill when they are accepted.
• VOID / CHANGE slips print on the kitchen printers when the POS voids or adds items on a ticket the kitchen still has, so the cook knows exactly what changed.

Things that print only when someone presses a button:

• Print bill on the POS or order page (for example to show the guest before paying). An unpaid bill carries a UPI QR for the amount due.
• Print KOT on the kitchen display (a reprint).
• Send to printer on a cash drawer report.
• Print test page on a printer in settings, or Test print on the print station.

A printer with auto-print off shows manual only and prints only these button presses.

How are KOTs split between kitchen stations?

Every menu item has a kitchen station (set on the item in Menu builder under Send to station: Kitchen, Grill, Tandoor, Cold, Bar, Dessert or your own). Every KOT printer has a list of Kitchen stations it prints for.

• A printer set to All stations prints every item.
• A printer set to, say, bar prints only bar items. If a round has no bar items, the bar printer prints nothing for it.
• A single round with drinks and food prints a drinks-only KOT on the bar printer and a food-only KOT on the kitchen printer.
• If a KOT printer covers more than one station, the ticket groups lines under headings like "-- TANDOOR --".

A KOT shows your restaurant name, KOT # with the order number, a big TOKEN number for takeaway, the table (for example TABLE 5) or TAKEAWAY / DELIVERY, *\\* PARCEL \\ for parcels (or under a single item packed on its own), the round and time, where it came from (POS with the staff name, QR ORDER or ONLINE**), the guest's name, a "For:" time on scheduled orders, each item with size, add-ons and notes in capitals, and the item count.

What do REPRINT and DUPLICATE mean?

AirQR marks copies so nobody cooks a dish twice or treats a copy as a new bill:

• A KOT printed again from the kitchen display (Print KOT) or from Recent prints carries a REPRINT banner at the top. A reprint goes to every active kitchen printer that makes something on that ticket, even printers set to manual only. Reprints also show voided lines marked "\\ VOID - DO NOT MAKE \\".
• A bill printed again for the same order is marked (DUPLICATE) under the title. That includes pressing Print bill after the bill already printed automatically when the check was settled.
• A VOID slip lists only removed items; a CHANGE slip lists removed items and added items ("\\ ADD - MAKE THIS \\").

In Recent prints, reprinted jobs show "· reprint" next to their name.

How does the print queue work?

AirQR doesn't send prints straight from the waiter's phone. Every print goes into a queue for its printer, and a print station picks it up and prints it:

• A print station tab: the Print station page open in Chrome or Edge on a computer or Android tablet. It prints to USB, Bluetooth, serial (COM port) and print-dialog printers. See Set up a USB or Bluetooth printer.
• An AirQR Printer Helper (also called the print bridge): a small free program on an always-on PC or Raspberry Pi at the outlet. It prints to LAN / Wi-Fi printers and printers installed on the computer. See Set up a LAN / Wi-Fi printer and the AirQR Printer Helper.

Because the queue sits in AirQR, nothing is lost if a printer is out of paper for a minute: jobs wait and print when the printer or station is back. Two stations never print the same job. Each print is built from the order at the moment it prints, so a reprint always matches what is in the system.

The kitchen display keeps working even if every printer is down, so the kitchen can always cook from the screen. If the POS is working offline, a print station tab open on the same device still prints its KOTs and bills (see Offline POS).

What are retries and the 30-minute rule?

Retries: if a print fails (printer off, out of reach, cable pulled), AirQR tries again up to 3 times, waiting a little longer each time. Recent prints shows "Retrying (1/3)" and so on. After the third failure the job is marked Failed with the reason underneath. If a station takes a job and stops responding (for example the tab was closed mid-print), the job is handed back to the queue after about a minute (five minutes for print-dialog printers).

The 30-minute rule: a job that has waited more than 30 minutes is not printed automatically. This stops a printer that was off all night from printing the whole previous evening when it's switched on. Those jobs show as Missed in Recent prints.

Printing a failed or missed job: in Settings → Printing & screens → Recent prints, press Print next to it. It goes into the queue as a fresh job (with a new 30-minute window). Printed jobs have an Again button for another copy. The eye icon (Preview) shows exactly what the printer receives. Recent prints lists the last 40 jobs from the past 3 days; press Refresh to update it.

When does the cash drawer open?

A cash drawer plugged into a bill printer (with an RJ11 cable) can open by itself. Turn on Open the cash drawer on that bill printer in Settings → Printing & screens.

The drawer opens only when:

• a bill prints automatically on settling a check that has a cash payment (the drawer opens once, even if the printer prints 2 copies), or
• you press Test on that printer (the test page says "(cash drawer should open)").

Pressing Print bill by hand does not open the drawer, and card or UPI-only bills don't open it. To count and record the cash itself, see Cash drawer.

What can't a thermal printer print?

Thermal printers print text in a basic character set. AirQR adjusts for this automatically:

• ₹ prints as Rs.
• Accents are removed (é becomes e).
• Hindi, Tamil and other scripts can't print in text mode. AirQR prints the item's English base name instead, so keep an English name on every item. If you need regional scripts on paper, use the Print dialog connection, which prints any language.

For the receipt header, footer and paper width see Print settings and receipts. If something doesn't print, see Printer troubleshooting.