Receipt & kitchen printing

A busy kitchen runs on paper. SupaOrder’s partner app prints two kinds of documents the moment an order is accepted — and keeps printing reliable with automatic reconnection, a retry queue, and test prints.

What gets printed

Document	For	Contents
Receipt	The customer / front of house	Items with prices, taxes and charges, total, payment status, order number, your branding
Kitchen ticket (KOT)	The kitchen	Items and quantities in kitchen-friendly large type, variants and addons, notes, order type and table number — no prices

You can print either on demand — order cards have manual Print and Print KOT buttons — and reprint past orders from order history.

Supported printer setups

In the Printer tab, the printer type select offers Bluetooth, Capacitor Bluetooth, Sunmi, Network, PrintNode, or None (for devices that only monitor orders). Pick what matches your hardware:

Bluetooth thermal printers

The most common setup: an inexpensive thermal receipt printer (58mm or 80mm paper) paired over Bluetooth with the phone or tablet running the partner app.

Choose the Bluetooth type, tap Scan for devices, and select your printer from the list.
Enable Auto-reconnect on startup so the app reattaches to the printer whenever it launches — strongly recommended for a dedicated order device. There’s also a Disconnect button for releasing the printer (e.g. to pair it with a different device).
Works on Android and iOS devices; the app auto-reconnects when it returns to the foreground, so a sleeping tablet doesn’t mean silent orders.
Most generic ESC/POS-compatible thermal printers work; check with SupaOrder support if you’re buying new hardware. If a printer refuses to connect with the Bluetooth type, try the Capacitor Bluetooth type — it’s an alternate Bluetooth connection mode that suits some models better.

Sunmi built-in printers

Running the partner app on a Sunmi Android terminal (the handheld or counter devices with a printer built into the body)? Choose the Sunmi type and the app prints directly to the built-in printer — no pairing, no extra hardware. This is the simplest “one device does everything” setup for a counter.

Check Printer Status confirms the built-in printer is ready.
Toggles for Auto Line Feed, Enable Beep Sound, and Open Cash Drawer control the device’s extras — the beep is a useful audible “ticket’s out” cue in a loud kitchen.

Network printers

For a receipt or kitchen printer on your local network, choose the Network type and enter the printer’s IP address and port. Good for fixed printers that shouldn’t depend on Bluetooth range — give the printer a static IP (or a DHCP reservation) so its address doesn’t change after a router restart.

PrintNode cloud printing

For printers connected to a computer rather than the staff device — including conventional desktop receipt printers — PrintNode routes print jobs over the internet:

Install the PrintNode client on the computer the printer is attached to.
Choose the PrintNode type in the Printer tab and connect your account, identifying the target printer by its PrintNode printer ID.
Jobs from any staff device print there.

This suits kitchens where the printer lives far from the tablet, or multi-station setups (one printer at the pass, one at the bar).

Browser / web printing

Using the partner app in a web browser? Print via the browser’s standard print dialog to any printer the computer knows about. Best as a fallback or for office use — it requires a manual confirmation per print, so it’s not ideal for auto-printing during a rush.

Connection status and capabilities

The Printer tab shows two panels worth knowing before you call support:

Connection Status — a status icon, when the printer last connected, and a health readout (Ready / Not Ready). If this says Ready, the hardware link is fine and any problem is in the settings.
Printer Capabilities — what your connected printer supports, shown as badges: Paper Cut, Cash Drawer, QR Code, Barcode, Images, Auto-reconnect — plus its paper sizes and print speed. If a badge isn’t there, the printer can’t do it; no setting will change that.

Formatting settings

General settings on the Printer tab control how output looks and behaves:

Page Size, Character Set, Printer Model, Printer Language, and Receipt Template selects — match these to your physical printer. A mismatched page size is the most common cause of garbled or cut-off prints.
Print Header and Print Footer text — your outlet name up top, a thank-you or returns line at the bottom.
An “Exclude special commands” toggle for printers that mishandle certain control codes — try it if printouts contain stray characters.

Auto-print on new orders

With the Auto-Print on New Order toggle enabled in the Printer tab, accepting an order immediately prints the receipt and/or kitchen ticket — no extra taps. Many restaurants auto-print only the KOT and print receipts on demand.

A dedicated kitchen (KOT) printer

The Printer tab has a separate Kitchen Order Ticket (KOT) Printer section with its own enable toggle, its own printer type and configuration, and its own header/footer text. That means the receipt printer and the kitchen printer can be completely different devices — a Bluetooth printer at the register and a Network printer at the pass is a classic two-station setup.

Verify it independently with the Test KOT Print button: a working receipt printer tells you nothing about the kitchen printer, and vice versa.

Reprints

Anything can be reprinted:

From a live order’s card — the manual Print and Print KOT buttons, e.g. after a paper jam.
From order history — yesterday’s receipt for a customer who came back asking for one.
After an order edit — print the updated documents so the kitchen works from the current version. See Editing orders & refunds.

The print queue and retries

Print jobs go through a managed queue rather than fire-and-forget:

Jobs are prioritized (an urgent new-order KOT prints before a routine reprint).
A failed job — printer briefly out of range, out of paper — is retried automatically rather than lost.
The queue shows each job’s state, so staff can see whether something is pending, printing, or failed, and cancel or retry manually.

If a printer is offline for a longer stretch, fix the connection and the queued jobs flow out; you don’t need to re-trigger every order.

Test print

The Test Print button in the Printer tab outputs a sample receipt. Use it to:

Verify a new printer is paired and the right one is selected
Check paper width and formatting before service
Diagnose problems without touching real orders

Run a test print at the start of any day after hardware changes — and use Test KOT Print for the kitchen printer, which is configured separately.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Try this
Nothing prints on new orders	Check Auto-Print on New Order is enabled, Connection Status reads Ready, and the device is awake with the app open
Prints are garbled or cut off	Confirm paper width (58mm vs 80mm) via Page Size, and that Printer Model / Printer Language / Character Set match the hardware; try the “Exclude special commands” toggle; run Test Print
Bluetooth printer won’t pair at all	Re-run Scan for devices with the printer powered on and nearby; if it still won’t connect, switch the type to Capacitor Bluetooth and try again
Bluetooth printer keeps dropping	Enable Auto-reconnect on startup; keep the device within range — the app also reconnects when it returns to the foreground, so reopen it after long idle
Network printer unreachable	Verify the IP address and port, that the printer and device are on the same network, and that the printer’s IP hasn’t changed
PrintNode jobs not arriving	Confirm the PrintNode client is running on the host computer and the printer shows online in PrintNode
Receipt prints but KOT doesn’t (or vice versa)	They’re separate configurations — check the Kitchen Order Ticket (KOT) Printer section is enabled and run Test KOT Print
Test Print ignores a change you just made	Settings weren’t saved — save, then test
Out of paper mid-rush	Replace the roll; queued jobs retry automatically — verify nothing was lost in the queue

For setup help with specific hardware, contact SupaOrder support — they’ve seen most printer models.