1. 58mm or 80mm?
The 58mm printer is small and cheap at ₹1,500-2,500, suited to a kirana or small shop, with 32 characters to a line. The 80mm is wider at ₹2,500-4,000 and suits hardware and material shops where item names are long and a GST breakdown is needed, giving 48 characters. For a material shop, buy the 80mm.
2. Connecting by USB, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi
Use USB if you are printing from a computer — it is the most reliable. Use Bluetooth from a phone or tablet. Use Wi-Fi or LAN if several devices need to print to the same printer. A Bluetooth printer can also travel with you, so you can hand over a bill at the site itself.
3. Setting it up
For USB, install the driver from the disc supplied or the manufacturer's website and the printer appears under Printers in Windows. When printing from the browser, select that printer and set the paper size to 80mm. For Bluetooth, pair it with the phone and print from the app. An 80mm × 50m roll costs around ₹40-60.
4. What appears on the bill
A small logo, your shop name, phone number and GSTIN, the bill number and date, the customer name, the items with quantity, rate and amount, the GST breakdown, the total, the amount received and balance, and a thank-you line at the foot. There is no colour, only black, so keep the layout simple.
5. Thermal printing is built into MaterialBill
Every invoice can be printed on A4 or an 80mm thermal roll with a single click, and receipts and cash vouchers print on thermal too. It prints straight from the browser with no extra driver software, and from a phone you can share the PDF to a Bluetooth printer.
6. What to put on the roll, and what not to
A thermal receipt is a counter acknowledgement, not a legal document, and treating it as one leads shops to cram terms and conditions onto a two-inch strip nobody reads. Keep it to your shop name, address, phone number and GSTIN at the top, the items with quantity and amount, the total, and a UPI QR at the bottom so the customer can pay from the paper in their hand. Where a buyer needs the full tax invoice with HSN codes and line-wise tax, share the A4 PDF from the same bill — one document for the counter, one for the accountant.
7. Buying paper and printers sensibly
Thermal paper is the only consumable — no ink, no toner, no cartridge — so the running cost of a counter is tens of rupees a month rather than thousands. Buy decent rolls: cheap thermal paper fades within months, which matters the day a customer brings a receipt back for a warranty claim or a return. On width, 80mm fits a readable description alongside quantity and rate, while 58mm is cheaper on paper but wraps long item names onto two lines. For any shop whose bills run past a few items, the small extra cost of 80mm is worth it.