Set up a printer

Omviq prints through POSAgent, a small app that runs on each till and connects the browser to receipt printers, kitchen printers, label printers, barcode scanners and cash drawers. A browser cannot talk to a USB printer on its own, so POSAgent bridges the gap. This page takes you from a new till to a printer that prints.

Before you start

You need to be signed in on the till you are setting up, with a role that can change settings.
Changing where a printer prints needs the Printing row in your role set to Manage or Full. Without at least Manage, the Printing view is visible but every control is greyed out. You set this under Settings → Staff & Permissions → Roles.
Omviq works with these printers:

Type	Connection	Used for
Thermal receipt printer	USB or network, ESC/POS	Customer receipts and kitchen tickets
Label printer	USB or network, ZPL or CPCL (Zebra and compatibles) or ESC/POS	Product labels, shelf tags and barcodes
Network printer	Ethernet or Wi-Fi, port 9100	A printer shared by several terminals

Set up a new till

Open Settings → Hardware & Agent → POSAgent Setup. On a till that has not been set up, the Dashboard tab shows a guided Set up this till checklist with five steps. Each step checks itself off as it completes.

Download & install POSAgent. The page detects your operating system and offers the right installer. Run it and let it finish.
Let this browser connect to POSAgent. This step appears only when the browser stands between the page and the agent. Current Chrome and Edge ask before a website may talk to apps on the same computer. When the browser asks, click Allow in the box near the address bar. When it blocks the page, set the site’s Apps on device permission to Allow. The Local network setting is different and does not cover it. Use a normal window, because a private window forgets the permission.
Waiting for the agent. Omviq watches for the agent and shows its live status. If the agent is installed but cannot be reached, troubleshooting tips appear here.
Register this till. One button registers this computer with your business and turns on Full Agent mode.
Add your first printer. Jump straight into printer setup, as described below.

Once the till is set up, the Dashboard tab shows a mode selector (Cloud Mode, Browser Till or Full Agent), the Till ID, a status card with the agent version, the time of the last health check and auto-updates on, and a Demo Mode toggle.

Omviq keeps one live connection to the agent for the whole session, on every screen, so printing works at checkout without visiting setup first. The Dashboard always shows the current state.

Status	What it means	What to do
Offline	No agent is installed or reachable on this computer.	Use Download to install it.
Connecting…	Omviq is reaching the agent.	Wait. It becomes Connected or a specific error.
Connected	The agent is responding.	Nothing.
Agent slow	The agent is up but answering late.	Watch it. You may need to reprint if a print seems to hang.
Reconnecting…	The connection dropped and Omviq is retrying.	Nothing. It recovers by itself.
Unavailable	Retries are used up and the cause is known, for example a certificate, a version mismatch or a blocked port.	Read the specific message shown. Omviq keeps checking and recovers on its own when the agent returns.

The till must be registered in the business to print. If you switch to a business where this till was never registered, the Dashboard prompts Register this till here.

Add a USB printer

Make sure POSAgent is installed and the till is registered first. Then, on the Printer Setup tab, choose Add Printer. The dialog has two steps.

Pick printer. Installed printers and connected USB devices appear in one list, each badged by where it was found. Select one, then confirm its name, paper width (58mm or 80mm) and protocol. If exactly one printer is found, it is already selected. If discovery fails, you see an error with Retry. If nothing is found, the dialog suggests plugging the printer in and checking the cable, and offers to add a network printer instead.
Test & finish. The printer is added straight away. Send a test print and see the result in the dialog. Choose Done.

Auto-cut, cash drawer and QR or barcode support are set afterwards, from the printer card’s Edit dialog.

Print method. A USB receipt printer can print two ways. You choose during setup and can change it later in the printer’s Edit dialog.

Method	How it works	When to use it
Direct USB (recommended)	POSAgent sends the data straight down the USB cable. No driver queue, so it prints at once.	Thermal receipt printers that support it. Omviq offers it when it detects one.
System printer	Prints through the operating system’s queue.	Printers without direct print, or printers the system shares.

On Windows, a printer’s queue is tied to one USB port (USB001, USB002 and so on). When you add a printer with System printer, or any time from Edit, POSAgent lists the ports it found. Choose Test this port and watch the printer. When one prints, choose Use this port. If a printer stops printing after it was unplugged and reconnected, run the port check again, because Windows can assign a different port.

Add a network printer

Choose network printer in the Add Printer dialog, enter its IP address and port (the default is 9100) and send a test print. Network printers belong to the whole business, so every terminal can use them.

When you add or edit a network printer on a till that has POSAgent running, Omviq also records the printer’s hardware address (MAC). If your router later gives the printer a new IP address, Omviq finds it again by that address and keeps printing. With no agent connected, the dialog says Automatic re-find unavailable without a local agent. The printer still works at the address you typed, but it cannot be found again if that address changes.

Label printers

Pick the protocol in the dialog. Label printers default to ZPL. Omviq draws the label once and speaks the right language to whichever printer you chose, so changing printer brand does not change your label design. The Label Settings section lets you choose the Label size (a preset such as retail 2×1, jewelry 30×15mm or 4×6 shipping, or your own width and height), the print quality (darkness, speed and media type), print a Test Label with crop marks and a barcode to check alignment, and run Calibrate after you change stock (ZPL printers).

The printer card

Each printer on the Printer Setup tab is a card with its name, a USB or Network badge, its address, its paper width, a star on the default printer, and a status that starts as Not checked with a Check now link for USB printers. Each card has a Test print button and a menu with Edit, Set as default and Delete. Printers added from one till are saved for the business you were in at the time, so USB printers appear in that business only.

Tell Omviq where each print goes

Kitchen stations. Customer receipts and kitchen tickets route through your kitchen stations. Under Settings → Kitchen Display → Stations, each station (for example Grill, Fry, Bar and Customer) has:

Field	What it does
Output mode	Kitchen display only, printer only, or both.
Primary printer	The printer from POSAgent setup that this station uses.
Fallback printer	Used when the primary printer cannot be reached.
Copies	How many kitchen ticket copies print.

When something prints, Omviq finds the item’s fulfillment center, finds its station and uses that station’s primary, then fallback, then default printer. Use Test Print on each row to check the whole path. Customer receipts use the Customer station’s printer. Setting a default printer is not enough if the Customer station has no printer assigned.

How a printer is reached. Under Settings → Printing, each printer has a modality: Local prints through this till’s POSAgent connection, which is the normal path for a till with a printer plugged in, and Browser prints through the device’s own print dialog, for a till with no agent. Pick one for each printer and save. It applies to the very next print.

Health and the log. Each printer row has a health chip: OK (green) when it is reachable and ready, WARN (amber) when something needs attention but it may still print, and ERROR (red) when it cannot print. Tap a WARN or ERROR chip to see the fault, for example offline, out of paper or cover open. The Print Log lists each print with the printer it went to and its outcome: Printed, Queued (waiting for a degraded printer to recover) or Failed (tap the entry to see why). A print that cannot go through always shows a message on screen at once. It never fails silently and never reroutes quietly.

Paper, copies and the cash drawer

Paper width is 80mm unless you choose 58mm when you add the printer. Kitchen tickets print one copy by default, and a station can print more (for example one for the cook and one for the expeditor).

The cash drawer connects through the receipt printer. When a cash payment is taken, Omviq signals the printer, and the printer opens the drawer. If it does not open, check the cable between the printer and the drawer, and check that the cash drawer capability is on in the printer’s Edit dialog.

What prints and when

Print	Prints when
Customer receipt	The sale completes.
Kitchen ticket	An order is sent to the kitchen.
End-of-day report	A till is closed.
Refund receipt	A refund is processed.

Printing goes through POSAgent, with an automatic fall back to the browser’s print dialog.

If something goes wrong

What you see	What to do
Nothing prints	POSAgent may not be running, or the till is not registered. Check the Dashboard tab in POSAgent Setup and follow the status guidance.
The Dashboard says Not installed	Use the Download button. It offers the right installer for your system.
The Dashboard says Installed but offline	The agent is not running or is blocked. Follow the on-screen tips, such as starting the agent and checking the firewall, then click Check again.
The Dashboard says Online, not registered	Click Register this till.
The printer card shows Not checked	Click Check now on the card.
The printer list shows an error, or Failed to add printer	You may be in a different business from the one this till’s printers were set up in. USB printers are saved for each business. Use the business switcher at the top left to return. Network printers are shared and are not affected.
No printers found when adding	Plug the printer in and check the cable, then Retry. Or add it as a network printer.
Garbled text	The protocol is wrong. Check that the printer uses ESC/POS, in the Add Printer or Edit dialog.
Slow printing	The network may be congested. Check it, or use a USB connection.
The wrong printer gets a ticket	A station’s printer is set up wrong. Check Settings → Kitchen Display → Stations.
A receipt cuts off	The paper may be jammed or the roll empty. Replace the roll.

For failures at print time, see Fix printing problems.