Easy Thermal Print / Guides

Which thermal printer to buy for your business

We make Easy Thermal Print, a free app for printing from Android. We don’t sell printers or earn a commission on any of them, and this guide has no shopping links.

What you need: To know which phone you’ll print from · To know what you’ll print and where · Four minutes

1. Pick the width, 58 or 80 mm

   The 58 mm printer (2¼ in paper) is the most common. It’s small, usually portable and battery powered, and it’s fine for receipts, kitchen tickets and QR codes. Each line fits about 32 characters.

   The 80 mm printer (3⅛ in paper) is the countertop kind. The receipt is wider and easier to read, with about 48 characters per line. It’s usually faster, many cut the paper on their own and almost all of them need an outlet.

   If you’re not sure, think about where it will live. If you move around, with deliveries, markets or door-to-door sales, go with 58 mm. If it stays at a counter or in a kitchen and prints all day, go with 80 mm.

   Note

   Buy rolls that match the printer’s width. Rolls labeled 57 mm or 2¼ in fit 58 mm printers.

2. Pick how it connects

   Bluetooth is the easiest way to print from a phone. No cables and no internet needed.

   USB works if the printer stays in one place. It plugs into a computer, or into a phone with an OTG adapter.

   WiFi or network is for when several phones print to the same printer, like servers sending orders to the kitchen. The printer connects to the shop’s router.

   Many printers come with two connections, such as Bluetooth and USB. If one gives you trouble, you still have the other.

   Note

   Using an iPhone? The standard Bluetooth in many cheap printers only works with Android. Look for one that says iOS or iPhone compatible, or one with WiFi.

3. Check that it says ESC/POS

   ESC/POS is the language almost every receipt printer speaks. If your printer understands it, you can print from almost any app, not just the manufacturer’s. Look for it in the listing, on the box or in the specs.

   Very common models use it, like the PT-210, the MTP-II, Xprinter’s 58 and 80 mm printers and the Epson TM-T20.

   If the listing doesn’t say, ask the seller whether it works with other apps besides theirs. If the answer is that it only works with their app, look for another one.

4. Avoid printers that only work with their own app

   Some printers look like receipt printers but use their own system and only print from the brand’s app. If that app stops getting updates, fills up with ads or doesn’t do what you need, you have nowhere else to go.

   The usual ones are the pocket-sized minis known as “cat printers”, Niimbot-style label makers and many 4 × 6 in shipping label printers, which are made to be used with a computer.

   Office printers, inkjet or laser, won’t work for receipts either. Android already prints to them from its own menu.

5. Test it the day it arrives

   Start with the self-test, a page the printer prints on its own, with no phone. On most models you turn the printer off, hold FEED and turn it back on. If a page with crisp text comes out, the printer works.

   Then print something from your phone. If anything is wrong, you still have time to exchange or return it. To connect it, follow the Bluetooth guide or the USB guide.

   With Easy Thermal Print

   The app is free. Connect the printer, tap Print test page and answer Did it print well? In a minute you’ll see whether the edges, darkness and characters come out right.