Driver Development for Android

Question

I plan to create a system for stores. I am going to use an Android tablet and a receipt printer. The printer I plan to use does not support Android.

My question is:

• Can I create a driver for the printer?
• Do I need to know anything about the printer, for example (a chip or any other electronic material).
• Is it difficult to create a driver?

thanks a lot

Answer 1

I will try to avoid this setting. The word store and receipt sound as if some reliability and user friendliness is required. Today, communication with printers is basically bi-directional because they send all kinds of information back. Processing at least some of them (low toner, out of paper) will certainly help your users. In addition, reverse-engineering a particular printer protocol will not necessarily be fun, especially if you are not experiencing printer protocols. In addition, low-cost printers convey all kinds of logic to the driver, as this reduces device costs. I will not rely on the available documentation.

A good sign that your printer is up to you can be if it is supported by some open source printing structures. Such a structure can also be your first address for answers to related questions.

Only my two cents.

Answer 2

I believe that the best choice would be to first try the open source printer software that can work with this printer. If any open source software does not work, you will get a good understanding after switching to an open source driver for another similar printer.

You will not need to know information about the chip and other electronic materials for writing a driver. Although you will need printer documentation that specifies the protocol that the printer follows.

I don’t think it should be very difficult to write a driver for the printer, although it depends on which flexible driver you want to write. If you want to write a driver that simply performs the specialized tasks that you want, the driver does not have to be hard, although the driver cannot be extended beyond the requirements of your application and is not used for any general use. If you want to write a universal driver that can be used for printing, then this may not be so simple.

Answer 3

Do you absolutely need to use a specific printer model? Because if not, you can take a look at Google Cloud Print . You will need to have a compatible Android application (and there are many of them, the list is available here ) and a cloud-based printer (again, there are many of them, you can find the list here ) or a regular printer, there is a way to also connect them.