Epson TM-T88IV ReStick Instruction Manual

MultiQ Products AB provides NO support for application development of any kind. The information here is provided "as
is", and there is no guarantee that any of the examples shown will work in your particular application.
Technical Note
Epson TM-T88IV printer
This document is intended as a guide for application developers and describes how to implement a
Epson TM-T99IV printer application with MultiQ Media player 4, 5 and Media monitor 4, 5, 6 and 7.
The reader is presumed to have prior knowledge of software development and it is desired to also
have knowledge of Linux and Linux systems in general.
This guide applies to products with firmware version 2.10.X or higher.
Important!
MultiQ Products AB provides n
o guarantee that any of the examples shown in this
document will work for any particular application or that the descriptions will be valid for
future firmware or product versions.
MultiQ Products AB cannot and will not be held liable for any damage inflicted to any
product as a result of the examples or instructions mentioned in this document.
MultiQ Products AB reserves the right to make changes to this document and to product
specifications without prior notice.

MultiQ Products AB provides NO support for application development of any kind. The information here is provided "as
is", and there is no guarantee that any of the examples shown will work in your particular application.
Technical Note – Epson TM-T88IV printer 2
Table of Contents
1Revision history..................................................................................................................3
2Introduction.........................................................................................................................4
3Connect the Epson TM-T88IV printer..........................................................................5
4Further information for developers ................................................................................7
4.1 For printing the following is used..................................................................................................... 7
4.2 Hardware............................................................................................................................................... 7
4.2.1 Tested printer ........................................................................................................................ 7
4.3 Advanced administration and configuration.................................................................................. 7
4.4 Administration of printers and CUPS ............................................................................................. 7
4.5 Add support for other printers.......................................................................................................... 7
4.6 Example.................................................................................................................................................. 8
4.7 Useful commandline commands:..................................................................................................... 8
4.8 Abbreviations........................................................................................................................................ 8

MultiQ Products AB provides NO support for application development of any kind. The information here is provided "as
is", and there is no guarantee that any of the examples shown will work in your particular application.
Technical Note – Epson TM-T88IV printer 3
1Revision history
This version of the User Requirements Specification becomes effective on the date of final
approval. If changes are made that affect the document’s content or approach, a revised, complete
document must be issued for re-approval by the roles of the approvers of the original document or
their designated representatives. A description of those changes with revision number will be noted
in the revision log below:
Version Date Comments
1.00 2010-02-10 Initial version
1.10 2010-06-30 Updated for release of firmware version 2.10 for media
monitors and media players.

MultiQ Products AB provides NO support for application development of any kind. The information here is provided "as
is", and there is no guarantee that any of the examples shown will work in your particular application.
Technical Note – Epson TM-T88IV printer 4
2Introduction
The MultiQ media monitors and media player can be used with a range of external equipment such
as printers, scanners and card readers. In this technical note the use of the Epson TM-T88IV printer
is described.
Figure 1. The Epson TM-T88IV printer used with MultiQ media monitors and media players.
Adding a printer to a media terminal or a media player makes it possible to print an extract of what
is shown on the screen or other information of interest to the user. For example to print queue
tickets in queue handling systems.

MultiQ Products AB provides NO support for application development of any kind. The information here is provided "as
is", and there is no guarantee that any of the examples shown will work in your particular application.
Technical Note – Epson TM-T88IV printer 5
3Connect the Epson TM-T88IV printer
Connect the TM-T88IV printer to the media player/monitor using the USB cable. The printer should
be ready for use.
To initiate printing a print command has to be sent to the printer. In this application note one
possible way of doing this is described.
In this example we use a web page “printerpage.html” on which there is a button initiating the
printout of the content of a framed element contained in the file “printout.html” on the same page.
printerpage.html code
<html>
<head>
<script>
function printframe(frameid)
{
document getElementById(frameid) contentWindow print();
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<input type="button" value="print iframe"
onclick="printframe(‘printcontent’)">
</input>
<iframe id="printcontent" src=" ./printout.html"
Style="display block"> <!--use style="visibility hidden" to hide
iframe… -->
</iframe>
</body>
</html>
printout.html code
<html>
<head></head>
<body>
<font style="font-size:40px;">
<p>40px text
<i>In Italics</i></p>
</font>
</body>
</html>

MultiQ Products AB provides NO support for application development of any kind. The information here is provided "as
is", and there is no guarantee that any of the examples shown will work in your particular application.
Technical Note – Epson TM-T88IV printer 6
Will give the following printout
Figure 2. Printout from above example code
In many it is desired not to display on screen the actual content that will be printed, here you may
place printout.html as a hidden frame and have it print immediately after being loaded. Printout will
be the same as in Figure 2.
Alternate printout.html code to print on load
<html>
<head></head>
<body onload="window.print();">
<font style="font-size:40px; ">
<p>40px text
<i>In Italics</i></p>
</font>
</body>
</html>
Of course the content of the webpage as well as the framed element can be changed for specific
applications. The code only contains the standard elements used when printing from web pages.
For applications not communicating with central systems, such as queue ticket systems or printout
of other information that is not updated very often it is advisable to publish the website to a zipped
folder that is stored in the media monitor itself. How this is done is described on pages 79-86 in
the DSMS3 Users manual that can be downloaded from the download page of the service &
support section of the MultiQ website.

MultiQ Products AB provides NO support for application development of any kind. The information here is provided "as
is", and there is no guarantee that any of the examples shown will work in your particular application.
Technical Note – Epson TM-T88IV printer 7
4Further information for developers
4.1 For printing the following is used
CUPS
http://www.cups.org/
GhostScript (ESP Ghostscript is a versatile processor of PostScript data)
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/6.3/pst/espgs.html
4.2 Hardware
4.2.1 Tested printer
Epson TM-T88iv
http://pos.epson.com/products/TM-T88IV.htm
4.3 Advanced administration and configuration
The following sections require SSH login to the media player.
It is setup to use
/dev/usb/lp0
4.4 Administration of printers and CUPS
There is web gui for administrating printers and CUPS.
Surf to:
http://
(you might need to enable access in /etc/cups/cupsd.conf in the client)
<client_ip>:631
4.5 Add support for other printers
To add support for a new printer you need to do this:
Add drivers/filters:
They are placed in /usr/lib/cups/filter/
Add a PPD file:
PPD files are created by vendors to describe the entire set of features and capabilities available for
their PostScript printers.
They are placed in /usr/share/cups/model/

MultiQ Products AB provides NO support for application development of any kind. The information here is provided "as
is", and there is no guarantee that any of the examples shown will work in your particular application.
Technical Note – Epson TM-T88IV printer 8
Add it to CUPS:
run /usr/bin/lpadmin (see example below)
4.6 Example
To get support for the default Epson printer, the following was added:
/usr/share/cups/model/eptmt88iv.ppd
/usr/lib/cups/filter/rastertotm
/usr/lib/cups/filter/tmtoprinter
and executed
/usr/bin/lpadmin -p t88iv -m eptmt88iv.ppd -v file:/dev/usb/lp0 -E -d t88iv
4.7 Useful commandline commands:
lpadmin add printer to cups
lpstat view status on printer
lp prints
4.8 Abbreviations
PPD Postscript Printer Description
CUPS Common Unix Printing System