Odoo Direct Dot-matrix Printing

How to Print Odoo Documents in the Speed of Dot-matrix Printers

One of the biggest challenge in implementing Odoo in companies which already have so many daily transactions (like thousands of invoices per day), is printing to Dot Matrix Printer!

Yes, it is common in big trading companies to use Dot Matrix printer to print PO, SO, Invoices, Picking List to efficiently print using continuous and carbonized forms so they can print 3-4 document at once. Printing PDF file to dot matrix printers that can take the whole day just to print :(

This can be a big issue in Odoo, because it uses PDF for every document printing. The print result is good when printed at desk jet/ laser jet printers, but when it comes to dot-matrix, the font is broken and almost unreadable. This is because the dot per inch is too small. We can set it up bigger, but it will take some more time to print to dot matrix printer. It is impractical when it comes to print like 5000 invoices daily!

The solution is to use a proxy printing technique. We make a small web server application at the client computer that is connected to the printer. That small application listen at a specific HTTP port and ready to receive request from Odoo's web browser client. At server side, we add an add-on that will send the raw data to print to that local application via HTTP post. The raw data is automatically composed based on the document to print using template.

The result is: AMAZING! printing is now direct to dot matrix printer with it's super fast speed and perfect printing result!

This course explains in details on how to make, configure, and setup the direct dot-matrix printing system for Odoo.

Enjoy!