Using an ePrint printer for restaurant orders?

[hockey2112]

Hello,

Has anyone here used Zen Cart and an ePrint printer for restaurant orders or similar setups? I've been looking into it, and unless I am mistaken it should be as easy as setting the printer's email address as the order notification email address.

Thoughts, experiences, etc?

[schoolboy]

Interesting idea... If the ePrinter is configured to work off the receipt of an email, then there should be no reason why it would not print an order confirmation message.

[hockey2112]

That's what I was thinking, too. You could probably set up the eprinter to only accept/print emails from a certain email address, eliminating the possibility of spam prints.

[schoolboy]

Set up a dedicated address that sends ONLY order confirmation emails. Try it...

[hockey2112]

Well, it's for a project that has not yet moved forward. Hopefully this new-found theory will help me close them soon and get going on their new website! I will definitely update this thread with any findings that I have.

[DrByte]

If I recall correctly, ePrint prints attachments, and if there is no attachment, then it prints the email body.
I think Zen Cart should print fine, although HTML-formatted messages might print more nicely than text-only ones.
There's lots of information online at HP's website about ePrint. It would probably be worth your time to explore the details.

[DrByte]

Has anyone here used Zen Cart and an ePrint printer for restaurant orders or similar setups? I've been looking into it, and unless I am mistaken it should be as easy as setting the printer's email address as the order notification email address.

That is correct.

could probably set up the eprinter to only accept/print emails from a certain email address, eliminating the possibility of spam prints.

Yes, that is also correct.

If I recall correctly, ePrint prints attachments, and if there is no attachment, then it prints the email body.
I think Zen Cart should print fine, although HTML-formatted messages might print more nicely than text-only ones.

Confirmed.

1. Create your ePrint account and get it all linked up to your printer. It's very simple: just follow the instructions on your printer and the printed report it gives you.
2. While it's not necessary, you can set up a semi-customized email address in your ePrint account instead of the random letters/numbers initially assigned. Again, it walks you through this online.
Optionally, you can configure your ePrint printer to allow color prints or not. That's your choice.
You can also configure allowed "sender" email addresses -- to minimize spam.
3. In your Zen Cart store, you'll need to enter that new email address in the Admin->Configuration->Email Options screen for the "Send extra order confirmation emails to" address. (If that's the only address you'll be emailing, then you can just enter the address itself. If you're going to send copies to multiple addresses, use the formatting shown in the help text on that Zen Cart screen: Name1<email @address.com>;Name2<your_printer_email @hpeprint.com>)
Now it'll send text-only emails to your printer whenever an order is placed.
4. If you want it to send HTML-formatted emails, create a customer account in your store using your hpeprint.com email address and select HTML as that customer's email preference. Now all emails sent from your store to that address will be in HTML format.