What receipt printer can i use for my laptop to print estimates?

[Jcookbarkingbow]

Looking to print client estimates via receipt printer. I have a laptop and Android Samsung 10.1 Note. What printer can i use? Or do you have a better idea than using emails and printing on normal full letter page printers?

[londontea · Accepted solution]

There’s not a way to print estimates or invoices from a receipt printer, instead you’d have to use a standard printer. However, you can print an estimate directly to a standard print from Square Invoices without having to email it first. To do this:

1. Choose the “share estimate manually” option when creating an estimate.
2. Save the estimate.
3. Next, open the estimate and scroll down to “More,” then choose the option to download the estimate.
4. The estimate will be downloaded as a PDF and you can print to a standard printer from your Note 10.1.

This process is almost exactly the same regardless of whether you do it through the Square Invoices app on a Note 10.1 or the invoices section of the online Square Dashboard on your laptop. 

[Electrician]

Hi @londontea 

Did they remove that option?  I did exactly as you said and there is no way to download an estimate.  I am used to downloading invoice PDFs this way, but the option is missing on estimates.

[RobynR]

Hey @Electrician,

Thanks for reaching out. 

This option is still available. After you select More have you tried to select Share?

Let me know if this works!

[Electrician]

Yes, I have tried that. But it is not the same. It is not like the PDF that you are able to download of an invoice.

[RobynR]

@Electrician

Thank you for letting me know.

Are you trying to download the estimate from your smartphone or desktop?

[Electrician]

It doesn’t matter.

Square does not give you a way to download a PDF version of the estimate, not via smart phone or website.

Since making the post above I did some more research and found that people have been asking for this option for many years, but Square simply says they don’t offer it and in all this time haven’t been willing to make it possible. This is very common for Square not to care about their users needs.

[RobynR]

Thank you for sharing your feedback. From my personal Square Account, I could download an estimate in PDF from my laptop/computer.

Click on the estimate>More>Print> Save PDF Doc. Please let me know if this workaround works for you.

Regarding downloading the estimate from your mobile device, feel free to share your suggestions in our Ideate Room here: squ.re/ideate - Our Product Team keeps an eye on this forum as they are constantly improving our products based on feedback like this.

[Electrician]

You’re not understanding.

Yes, you can print any webpage into a PDF document. But you’re still just printing a webpage, which often is rather ugly.

What many of us are looking for is the fancy PDF form that Square uses when downloading an invoice. It looks very professional, it even has a QR code at the bottom.

There is no way to do that for an estimate.  No PDF that square makes like they do for the invoice. 

As far as asking square to do it, I just told you that people have been asking Square for years on this very forum that you moderate, and Square ignores it. 

This is a thread from 2019 asking for this option, of course nothing came from it:

https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/General-Discussion/Receipts-Invoice-and-Estimate-as-PDF/td-p/1335...

Here is another thread where many people are asking for this exact option, the moderators have been merging all the new threads asking for it into this thread. But again, this option goes ignored:

https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Questions-How-To/Does-Square-have-a-way-to-generate-PDF-for-Estim...

Every single option I’ve ever seen asked on this forum gets ignored by Square

[PerroneTech]

You can do this from your laptop. Go to Square Dashboard > Invoice > Invoice You Want to Print > More > Download PDF. It gives you the same PDF you want. I cannot attach it to this post but it looks like you want it. If you want this functionality on your Note 10.1, go to the Square dashboard from your web browser, select the three dots, and then choose "Show Desktop Site". This will format the page as if you are browsing from a PC. Then you can do the steps above.

However, with that being said, on the iPad OS app, downloading an invoice opens a PDF full screen with no way to go back. I have to close the app entirely.

EDIT: I see you are asking to do this for estimates. No. Square does not have a fancy estimate form as they do for invoices. I don't think they really want you printing them out. You send it for approval and then print out the nice invoice.

[Electrician]

Yes, I am one of many people looking for a PDF estimate. This is very important in many situations.

Some things need to be printed out, and it looks horrible printing out an email.  

I don’t believe that square doesn’t want us printing out estimates for any specific reason. They just haven’t added that functionality and aren’t willing to listen to all the people asking for it.

[PerroneTech]

If you share an estimate, you get a URL, if you go to that URL on your device (at least on PC) it takes you to a page where the estimate can be accepted. If you print that page, it doesn't look half bad. Not as good as the invoice, but not half bad.

[Electrician]

We don’t want half bad, we want a nice, formal estimate.  

We want the same PDF as we could get for the invoice. We want someone to be able to print it out and then someone else use their phone to scan the QR code on it, just like on the invoice.