Print from phone, page cut off

Jhunjhunu. I bill from a Redmi. I do not keep a computer in the shop. Computer is for the CA.

I make a simple invoice on the phone. Preview looks full. I send to the xerox uncle next door. He hits print. A4 comes. Bottom is white. Grand total gone. Signature line gone. Sometimes half a word, like GRAN and then nothing.

Customer looks at me like I am hiding the amount. I am not hiding. The paper ate it.

Print from phone, what actually happened

First I blamed BillOnDesk. Then I printed at home on a small inkjet. Same cut. Then I understood. Phone print is a window. The window is smaller than the bill. Browser adds its own header footer. Shop bill already has a header. Two headers. Body pushed down. Bottom dies.

What I do now.

I open the preview. I look at the last line. Total. DRAFT. Signature. If I cannot see them on the phone preview, they will not magically appear on A4. I scroll the preview. All the way. Lazy thumb is why I missed.

Then print. In Chrome I tap the print menu. Paper A4. Portrait. Not landscape for a long item list unless I want thin columns. I tried landscape once. Looked like a calendar. Uncle laughed.

Margins. I put default first. Cut. Then I put smaller margins if the phone allows. Not zero always. Zero sometimes cuts the other way, text on the plastic roller mark. A little margin. I watch the print preview thumbnail. If the thumbnail shows the total, I print. If thumbnail is cropped, I do not hope.

Headers and footers in the browser. Date and URL. I switch them off when I find the tick. URL of BillOnDesk on every page makes the bill look like a homework. Also steals height. Height is what kills the total.

Scale. 100 percent. I put 80 to fit. Then font became a mosquito. Customer squinted. I put 90 sometimes. I do not go 70. Better two pages than a mosquito.

Two pages. I used to fear page 2. Now I fear missing total more. If items are 12, page 2 is okay. I write page of pages if the tool shows. I tell customer, second page has total. They flip. Fine.

Xerox uncle uses some old setting. Fit to page off. I stand there. I do not send WhatsApp and sit in the shop. I walk. I watch the first print. If cut, I change setting. Then I print the real one. One wasted page is cheaper than a fight.

Thermal printer in my cousin shop. 3 inch. A4 bill will always cut. Thermal wants a short cash memo. I use cash memo idea for thermal. For A4 customer I do not send A4 layout to thermal. Wrong machine. Wrong paper. Cut is guaranteed.

I learned this after three thermal rolls of half bills. Cousin said your website is broken. Website was A4. Printer was a kitchen roll.

Phone split screen. I bill with WhatsApp on one side. Print preview tiny. I missed the cut in the tiny. Full screen for print. WhatsApp can wait.

Dark mode. My Redmi. Preview inverted. I thought the bottom was empty because black. It was not empty. I still print in light. Eyes see the edge of the page.

If PDF download works, I download PDF and print the PDF from a PDF app. Sometimes the PDF app respects page better than the HTML print. Sometimes not. I try. If PDF is blank, that is another headache I wrote later. Here, if PDF shows total, I print PDF.

I do not zoom with two fingers on the print preview and expect that zoom to print. Screen zoom is not print zoom. I did this. Felt smart. Paper still cut. Smart was fake.

Long shop name. I wrote my shop name like a banner. Three lines of address. Then GSTIN. Then a poem slogan. Then items. Slogan ate the total. I cut the slogan. Shop name one line. Address one line. Items live. Total lives. Pride can sit on the board outside, not on the A4.

DRAFT watermark. It sits on the page. It should not push the table off. If some print driver makes watermark heavy, I still keep DRAFT. I do not remove DRAFT to save space. Space I save from slogan. DRAFT is the truth. BillOnDesk is not GSTN. Cut page plus no draft mark is how a paper pretends. I will not.

How I print the simple invoice

Signature. I sign after print, by hand, in the white. If the line is cut, I still sign on the remaining white and write total again by hand. Ugly. Better than no total. Then I reprint when the queue is small.

Customer waiting. I should not rush print. Rush is cut. I say two minutes. Tea. I print right.

A4 quality. Xerox uncle has thin paper. Ink light. Bottom looks cut because it is faint, not cut. I look close. If faint, I ask him to print darker. If cut, settings. Two different illnesses. I treated faint as cut for a month. Wrong medicine.

I keep a sample print on the wall. Good print. Total visible. I show uncle, like this. He has many customers. He resets. Sample helps.

If I print from Instagram in-app browser, things break. I open in Chrome. In-app is a cage. Cage cuts. Chrome.

If I print from WhatsApp in-app, same. Open in browser.

This one change fixed half my Jhunjhunu cuts. In-app.

Item rows. I do not add empty rows for beauty. Empty rows are empty height. Height kills total. Six real items. Not twenty blank.

Notes. Short. Long legal poem at the bottom is how signature dies. I write, draft only, not official GST invoice, goods once sold check at counter. Short.

Rupees in words. One line. If the words wrap to four lines because I typed extra, I shorten. Rupees in words I paste. I do not paste twice.

On desktop at home I print easier. In the shop I am phone only. So I practice phone. The site is mobile first. I still have to respect print preview.

When the page is cut, customer thinks discount is hiding. Trust goes. I now show them the phone preview total first. Then paper. If paper matches phone, good. If not, I do not give the cut paper. I reprint. Cut paper in his bag is a future fight.

I threw cut papers in the bin. Do not give cut. Do not sign cut. Reprint.

Jhunjhunu dust on the xerox glass. Sometimes a black line. Not a website cut. Wipe glass. I am becoming a print uncle.

I am okay with that. Total should be on the page.

Steps I actually do. Fill simple invoice. Scroll preview to bottom. Chrome, not in-app. Print preview thumbnail has total. Browser header off. Scale near 100. Stand at xerox. First copy check. Then customer copy.

If still cut, fewer address lines. Then two pages. Then PDF app.

I do not buy a hologram printer. I do not need Ashoka. I need the number at the bottom.

BillOnDesk draft. Print it whole. A whole draft is useful. A cut draft is a rumour.

Use simple invoice. See the bottom. Then print. If you are on Redmi like me, full screen, Chrome, watch the thumbnail.

And tell the xerox uncle, bottom should show total. He will get it. He has seen a hundred cut pages. He is not the enemy. The margin is.