botcall-print

Local print daemon for botcall. Receives print jobs from the cloud and sends them to your USB thermal printer.

Prerequisites

Linux (Raspberry Pi, etc.)

Install USB libraries before installing botcall-print:

sudo apt install libusb-1.0-0-dev python3-libusb1
pip install pyusb

macOS

brew install libusb
pip install pyusb

Installation

pip install botcall-print

Or install from source:

cd clients/print-daemon
pip install -e .

Setup

1. Get your botcall API key from https://botcall.io
2. Configure the daemon:

botcall-print setup
# Enter your API key when prompted

3. Test your printer:

botcall-print test "Hello from botcall!"

4. Start the daemon:

botcall-print daemon

Running as a Service

macOS (launchd)

# Create launch agent
cat > ~/Library/LaunchAgents/io.botcall.print.plist << EOF
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>io.botcall.print</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>$(which botcall-print)</string>
        <string>daemon</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>
EOF

# Load it
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/io.botcall.print.plist

Linux (systemd)

# Create service file
sudo cat > /etc/systemd/system/botcall-print.service << EOF
[Unit]
Description=botcall print daemon
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=$USER
ExecStart=$(which botcall-print) daemon
Restart=always
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

# Enable and start
sudo systemctl enable botcall-print
sudo systemctl start botcall-print

Commands

Supported Printers

Any ESC/POS compatible USB thermal printer. Common models:

• Epson TM-T20/T88
• Star TSP100/TSP650
• Generic 58mm/80mm receipt printers (ZJ-58, XP-58, etc.)

Troubleshooting

"Printing with USB connection requires a usb library"

Install USB dependencies:

# Linux
sudo apt install libusb-1.0-0-dev python3-libusb1
pip install pyusb

# macOS
brew install libusb
pip install pyusb

Printer not found

Check USB connection:

# macOS
system_profiler SPUSBDataType | grep -A5 -i printer

# Linux
lsusb | grep -i printer

Permission denied (Linux)

Add udev rule:

echo 'SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0416", MODE="0666"' | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/99-thermal-printer.rules
sudo udevadm control --reload-rules

Slow/corrupted prints on Mac

Known macOS USB driver issue. The daemon includes chunking to work around this, but very image-heavy prints may still have issues. Consider using a Raspberry Pi for best results.