How do I print order tickets in the kitchen?

Pair a Star CloudPRNT thermal printer so paid orders print as kitchen tickets automatically — or print a docket from any order on the board.

Order & Pay can put every paid order on paper two ways: a thermal kitchen printer that prints a ticket automatically the moment an order lands, and a Print docket button on any order's board card for printing from whatever printer your device already uses. Both print the same docket — the order code, the table or the customer's name and time, every item with its choices and notes, allergens where you've declared them on the dish, a "CONTAINS ALCOHOL" line where it applies, and the cash to take on a cash order.

Pairing a thermal printer

ResoFlow prints to Star printers that support CloudPRNT — the printer itself fetches tickets over the internet, so there's no computer, app or print server in between. Pairing lives on Orders → Settings, in the Screens section, on the Kitchen printer card:

• Press Pair a printer, give it a name ("Kitchen pass", say), choose what it prints — All orders, Kitchen only or Bar only — and press Pair printer.
• The card shows the printer's unique address once — copy it now (there's a copy button). If you lose it, revoke the printer and pair again.
• Connect the printer to the venue's Wi-Fi or network cable.
• Open the printer's settings page in a browser (its manual shows the address — usually printed on a self-test receipt).
• Find CloudPRNT in the settings, switch it on, and paste the copied address into the Server URL box.
• Set the polling time to 10 seconds and save — the printer restarts and starts collecting order tickets.

From then on every paid order prints automatically within about ten seconds — with one deliberate exception: an order placed for a later time (a collection or delivery slot) prints at its start-cooking moment, the promised time minus that channel's wait, not when it was placed, so a 7 pm collection taken at noon lands on the pass at about half past six rather than sitting in a pile all afternoon. Our server fires that drop itself (the printer collects the docket from us), so it prints with every screen off; a member of staff can bring it forward with Start now on the order's Upcoming card, which prints it at once, or send the kitchen a heads-up copy with the card's Print now button — it goes to your paired printer straight away (split by station exactly like the drop docket), headed with one extra line, HEADS-UP COPY — COOKS AT and the start-cooking time (18:45, say), so the kitchen can tell it from the cooking docket, which still prints at the drop — two pieces of paper for that order, and the kitchen never loses its cue. With no printer paired, the same button opens the docket in your browser instead. If a member of staff edits a live order, the changed ticket prints again so the kitchen is never working from stale paper.

Pre-order dockets

With Show pre-orders on the kitchen screens on (Settings → Pre-orders), a booking's pre-order prints on the same printer at its own start-cooking moment — Start cooking before the booking minutes before the booking time (30 unless you change it; with an Order & Pay collection channel on, its wait time is used instead), or the moment the party is seated. The docket is headed PRE-ORDER, names the table, the customer, the party size and the booking time, lists every dish with who it's for, and carries the allergy or notes text typed on the booking as the guest's own note; it splits between kitchen and bar printers exactly like an order docket. A pre-order changed after it printed prints again; a booking cancelled or marked a no-show after the docket went out prints a VOID slip on each printer that had it, so nobody cooks from stale paper. Print again on the ticket sends it once more.

Splitting tickets between stations

If you've turned on Split orders by station (see the Order & Pay guide), printed tickets split exactly like the screens do: a printer set to Kitchen only prints just the kitchen's items, a Bar only printer just the bar's, and a mixed order prints one ticket per station, each naming the set menu it's part of where a bundle spans both. A printer set to All orders prints everything on one ticket.

Printing a one-off docket

Every order card on the board carries a Print docket button — it opens the docket in a print-ready page and uses your device's normal print dialog, so it works with any printer your tablet or computer can already reach. Use it when you have no thermal printer, or for a reprint.

When the printer stops printing (troubleshooting)

• The printer has stopped printing tickets / nothing prints — start with when it last checked in. On Orders → Settings, in the Screens section, the Kitchen printer card lists each paired printer with when it last checked in ("last seen", followed by how long ago) and when it last printed. A printer normally checks in every 10 seconds, so one that hasn't checked in for a few minutes has usually lost its network connection or had its CloudPRNT setting changed — re-check steps 3–6 above (the network, CloudPRNT switched on, the pasted address, the 10-second polling time). Tickets wait for the printer, so a printer that comes back online prints what it missed, oldest first (unprinted tickets expire after 48 hours).
• Printer offline alerts — you're told, loudly: if a paired printer hasn't checked in for 3 minutes while order tickets are waiting for it, or a ticket couldn't print after five tries, every staff screen gets a bell alert and the Orders screen shows a red strip naming the printer and how many tickets are waiting. It clears itself the moment the printer checks in again. A ticket that couldn't print is kept and flagged rather than dropped, so you can print it from the board. The board also shows a small "Printer: last seen N min ago" chip beside each card's Print docket button.
• Pause printing — the card's Print order tickets on the paired printers switch pauses all automatic printing without unpairing anything; the board and screens carry on as normal.
• Retire a printer — Revoke it from the card (this needs an owner or manager to approve). A revoked printer stops collecting orders within a minute and can't reconnect with its old address; pair again to bring one back.
• Odd characters on tickets — tickets are printed in the plain character set thermal printers understand, so emoji or unusual symbols in dish names print as a question mark rather than garbling the ticket.

Related: How do I set up and run Order & Pay? · Collection and delivery