title: POS Printer OPOS interface and When to Use It
body: <p>I am developing a POS system for cafe-bar-restaurants. It works fine, but I have some problems regarding printers. People here suggest I use <code>POS for .NET</code>.</p>
  
  <p>But I can't because:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>My client has a machine with windows home edition as server. So POS for .NET has no luck at one of his two stores.</p></li>
  <li><p>The previous pos software he had printed to thermal printers using GDI graphics.But was too slow dont know why.. you had to wait for 10 sec to print a receipt.</p></li>
  <li><p>I get complaints because font is a bit small using these printers.(42 chars 80mm paper) And that is true. Native printer's font sucks way too much. All of the printers i see suck because they arent from a good brand.Also guys that developed the fonts were too bored that used latin letters mixed with local ones. But prints from graphics mode look WAY WAY WAY better and antialised and smooth and clear and nearly same speed.</p></li>
  <li><p>Printers dont have OPOS.NET drivers. I sent emails at chinese companies that produce these printers and said that they didnt have developed one yet..</p></li>
  <li><p>Some of these printers dont support some basic ESC/POS commands! Even command for  paper feed is problematic. Only the newer printers are almost compatible but the older ones arent at all.</p></li>
  <li><p>Using plain text + esc/pos i cant make the font larger only x times larger.</p></li>
  <li><p>GDI seems to be the most compatible way unluckily</p></li>
  <li><p>Our fiscal device seems to not support sending raw text to printer. It is partly implemented and works only for 32 bit systems as it is for "DOS".. Had no luck installing it. So I had to use graphics. Actually it is a virtual printer. The company that has the fiscal device told me that graphics is the best way to print a thermal receipt and I should not use plain text etc... Also asking them for OPOS drivers for some of their printer told me "what the f* are you talking about?"</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>So I don't know what to do. I think that I should support 3 ways of printing:  POS for .NET / raw text / graphics.   </p>
  
  <p>Also, how do you overcome difficulties with thermal printers when sending raw text? Because graphics give you more freedom. Does the fiscal device suck for not supporting text mode?</p>