How do I print receipts on a receipt printer using Thunderbird?

Answer

This answer assumes that you've reviewed the How Does Printing Work in Alma FAQ, specifically the Thunderbird Print Manager document.

These directions are for use with a Star TSP650 receipt printer, but you could customize them for use with your printer. Note that you'll want to set this up on the pc that's connected to your receipt printer, and you'll want to only use this Thunderbird instance to print to this printer. You can set Thunderbird up on another pc and use different filters to allow Alma to print to a regular, non-receipt printer. You can have both Thunderbird instances up and running at the same time.

Printer Settings
Alma Settings
Thunderbird Settings
Final Product

Printer Settings:

In your receipt printer settings, make sure that there’s an “end” size for your paper size, e.g. 70mm * 200mm instead of 70mm * receipt.

Also, make your left/right margins .1, top and bottom 0, and make headers & footers blank:

printer settings

Alma Settings:

You’ll need to customize your Ful Loan Receipt Letter to print on a narrow sheet of receipt paper instead of on a full letter sized sheet. Go to Alma Configuration->General->General Configuration->Customize Letters:

customize letters

Scroll down until you see Ful Loan Receipt Letter and click on the three dots to edit it:

full loan receipt letter

You'll want to replace the code in this file with something like the code below, which takes the default 6 column loan receipt table and turns it into a two column table with the column names on the left and the data on the right. The code is based on our current Aleph receipt xsl files (shout out to Natalie Sturr and Nina Warren for their work getting this configured in Aleph). Note that this code is just a starting point - you'll want to replace anything GCC specific with your own information, and if you have coding skills there are additional enhancements and configurations that you can make.

The code (copy from <? to stylesheet> and completely replace the default code in the Alma file):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

<xsl:include href="header.xsl" />
<xsl:include href="senderReceiver.xsl" />
<xsl:include href="mailReason.xsl" />
<xsl:include href="style.xsl" />
<xsl:include href="recordTitle.xsl" />

<xsl:template match="/">
    <html>
      <head>
        <xsl:call-template name="generalStyle" />
      </head>
      <body>
        <xsl:attribute name="style">
          <xsl:call-template name="bodyStyleCss" />
        </xsl:attribute>

<div class="messageArea">
        <div class="messageBody">

        <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" border="0">
   <tr>
                 <td><strong>Loan Receipt</strong><br />
   <br />
                Genesee Community College<br />
               Alfred C O'Connell Library<br />
One College Road<br />
Batavia, NY 14020<br />
Ph: (585) 345-6834
                </td>
                 </tr>

<xsl:for-each select="notification_data/loans_by_library/library_loans_for_display">
       <tr>
       <td>
       <table cellpadding="5">
       
       
       
       <xsl:for-each select="item_loans/overdue_and_lost_loan_notification_display/item_loan">
       <tr>
       <td style="width:25%; font-weight:bold;">@@title@@:</td>
       <td><xsl:value-of select="title"/></td>
       </tr>
       <tr>
       <td style="width:25%; font-weight:bold;">@@due_date@@:</td>
       <td><xsl:value-of select="new_due_date_str"/></td>
       </tr>
       </xsl:for-each>
       </table>
       </td>
       </tr>
       <hr/><br/>
       </xsl:for-each>
       <br />
       <br />
       </table>

<table>
       <tr><td>@@sincerely@@</td></tr>
       
       <tr style="padding-bottom:5px;">
       <td>FINES accrue per day/item. You are responsible for all items listed.</td>
       </tr>
       <tr style="padding-bottom:10px;">
       <td>RENEWALS may be made online, in person or by telephone, on or before due date.</td>
       </tr>
       <tr style="padding-bottom:10px;">
       <td>Our Mission Statement: We cultivate learning and provide tools for discovery.</td>
       </tr>
       </table>
   </div>
        </div>
        
       
      </body>
    </html>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Once you've replaced your code, make sure to save.

Loan receipt code

You can always click the three dots to the right of the letter name and restore the default code to start from scratch if things get too convoluted.

Thunderbird Settings:

You'll need to add the PrintingTools add-on, which you can find following the same steps listed for the FiltaQuilla add-on in the Thunderbird Printing doc. To print just the loan receipt to the receipt printer, you'll want to set up a filter like this, substituting your loan receipt subject line for the GCC one:

Filter

The add-on will let you hide the header information on the printout (email to/from, subject), it'll hide the attached logo, you can tell it how wide to make your text area, and you can tell it what size and font to make your text. Go into the add-on to adjust the settings:

PrintingTools options