How to make orders print on their own
Without someone clicking print and confirming a browser dialog every single time.
Short answer
For an order to come out on paper by itself, something has to be running near the printer, listening for orders. An open browser tab will not do it: for security reasons, no browser may send anything to a printer without a human confirming. What works is a small program installed on the counter computer that receives the order and sends it to the USB or network thermal printer with no clicks at all.
Does this sound familiar?
- The marketplace order arrives and sits waiting for someone to click print.
- At peak, printing falls behind because whoever prints is serving a customer.
- The browser opens the print dialog and someone has to confirm every time.
- The printer prints the Windows test page but not from the system.
- It only prints if that one tab is open on that one computer.
Why it happens
This is not a limitation of your system or your printer: it is a browser protection. If a web page could print without confirmation, any website could print in your house. That is why every fully-web system needs a local helper to achieve automatic printing — and why any supplier promising otherwise is, at best, hiding the same helper somewhere.
Five steps to fix it
The steps below work with a notebook and a spreadsheet too. Software makes each one faster — the order is the same either way.
- 1
Pick where the paper comes out
The machine that is already switched on near the printer — usually the counter computer. It does not need to be fast; it needs to stay on.
- 2
Install the print agent on it
A small program that runs in the background, finds the machine's printers and talks to the USB or network thermal printer.
- 3
Pair it with your shop
A pairing code links the agent to your account. Done once, and the machine stays recognised across restarts.
- 4
Choose what prints on its own
Only what arrives on its own (marketplace, digital menu), everything, or nothing. Printing counter-typed orders as well is usually wasted paper: whoever typed it already has the customer in front of them.
- 5
Leave it switched on
If the machine goes down, orders wait in the queue and come out when it is back. The order itself never depends on the printer: it is already recorded and showing on the kitchen screen.
What actually changes
Paper without clicks
An order that arrives on its own comes out on its own, the moment it lands.
Nobody watching a screen
At peak, the printer stops depending on someone being free.
Choose per channel
You decide what deserves paper instead of printing everything by default.
Frequently asked
Do I have to leave a computer switched on?
You need something switched on near the printer — that is the price of clickless printing in a web system, for any supplier. In practice it is the computer that already sits on the counter all day, so it is not an extra machine.
Does it work with any thermal printer?
It works with ESC/POS printers connected by USB or over the network, which covers the overwhelming majority of receipt printers on the market.
What if the computer goes down mid-service?
Orders wait in the queue and come out when the machine is back. Anything sitting for more than two hours is deliberately not printed: a two-hour-old ticket appearing mid-rush causes more trouble than it solves, and the order is on the kitchen screen either way.
Can I print from a phone?
You can, by sharing the receipt as a PDF or image — which solves the one-off, when you are away from the counter. For the all-day flow, the agent is the answer.
What handles this in DoFast
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