Printer Routing

What affects where a ticket prints? Printer routing.

This section of documentation is dedicated to walking through all if not most of the various settings that affect where tickets and checks are printed.

Menu Item Maintenance

Each menu item can be set to print to a specific printer. By default food items are set to print to a KITCHEN printer and drinks and alcohol are set to print to a BAR printer.

Multiple printers may be added to the system and items can be sent to print to multiple printers or to not print at all. If multiple zones is chosen, you will have to specify which printers an item prints to in the 'Alternate Pricing and Printers' tab of menu item maintenance

An item's print zone can be set on menu maintenance. The list of print zones is controlled by Remote Printers

If multiple zones is chosen they will have to be selected in the alternate pricing and printers tab

Remote Printers

Printers can be added to the system through the Remote Printers settings.

To get there select HotSauce -> System -> System Config -> Remote Printers.

By default there will always be a KITCHEN and BAR printer.

To add a printer, simply fill out an empty row. Up to 10 printers can be added. Hotsauce Printer Name refers its name in the Hotsauce software; Windows Printer Device is the name of the printer in Windows. It's good practice to make both the Hotsauce and Windows name the same for clarity's sake, though sometimes you may see a different Windows Printer Device path depending on whether shared printing has been set up.

Printer type dictates whether tickets will print from it if a station is set to be a bar station or not. A station that is marked as a bar station in its .ini will not print to a printer with type 'Bar'.

Workstation Config

We can also direct printers through Back Office under Workstation Config.

Workstation Config can be found by HotSauce -> System -> System Config -> Workstation Config.

Workstation Config allows you to specify some setting specific to each POS station, including the function to override the selected print zones for a specific station.

In the example to the right, we've specified that for POS1, any menu items printed to the KITCHEN printer should instead be sent to the PIZZA printer.

Express Order Types

One can set a printer override for orders taken in Hotsauce Express as well. This feature was developed with the idea some places that process many togo or delivery orders have their own separate delivery station that wants all items printed to the same ticket.

Note that the Kitchen Printer override will override ALL remote printers and send menu items to the specified printer. The local printer override will only jobs sent to print to LOCAL.

FOH Redirect Printing

In Hotsauce Front of House, merchants are able to redirect printing from one printer to another on the fly.

This function is located under Manager -> System -> Redirect Printing. If this option does not show up, double check that it has been enabled for the appropriate roles in security setup.

In this example, KITCHEN has been redirected to PIZZA.

Windows Printing and Printer Properties

If you open up Print Management or Devices and Printers on Windows you will be able to see a list of printers installed on the POS station. The name of each printer that is used by Hotsauce should correspond to the name of the printer under "Windows Printer Device".

When an order is placed in FOH, it will attempt to send a print job to the printer associated with each item ordered. If Hotsauce cannot find the Windows Printer Device associated with a print job, then it attempt to print to that stations LOCAL printer. If no LOCAL printer is installed, then Hotsauce print jobs will fail to print.

Windows Print Management offers an overview of the printers installed on each POS station.

If you go into a printer's properties, you can see how a printer has been installed to communicate with Windows. In the example in the right, the KITCHEN printer has been configured as a

It's important to know that these settings only tell Windows which port to attempt to send a print job to. If a printer is not configured and installed on a matching port, the print job will be stuck in queue. Please refer to Installing Printers if unsure how.

These ports are the true indicators for where a print job will physically print. If the KITCHEN printer is set to point to the IP of the BAR printer then kitchen tickets will print out to the physical BAR printer. If the KITCHEN printer is set to point to a USB port for the local printer, then kitchen tickets will print out to that POS station's thermal printer.

Printer Routing Order of Operations

Now that we an understanding of each setting in printer routing, lets consider the order of operations when a menu item entered is sent to print:

1) Hotsauce .ini -> BarStation = Y or N

2) Menu Item Maintenance Print Zone

3) Workstation Config

4) FOH Redirect

5) Express Order Type Override (this needs more testing)

6) Remote Printer Hotsauce name -> Windows Printer Device name

7) Port for printer on Windows

Designing a Setup for Merchants with Complex Printer Setups (WIP)

Using these tools and functions of Hotsauce we can look at how we might design a printer setup for a merchant with complex and dynamic printer routing needs.

Consider a merchant with a bar on a two story building. They have one upstairs bar open only on weekends and one downstairs bar open all week. The downstairs bar

They have four POS stations. POS1 (bar station) and POS2 (server station) upstairs; POS3 (bar station) and POS4 (server station) downstairs. They need drink tickets from POS2 and POS4 to print to POS1 Monday-Thursday. Friday-Sunday drinks ordered on POS2 should print to the now open bar on POS1.

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