I actually use my printers thank you very much. Even bought one of those bank teller slip printer things and a few boxes check-sized slips. I use them for time tracking and todo list.

I didn't go totally crazy, though, and stopped before getting too deep into "...and then OCR them using the check scanner" because I remembered I was already keeping track of start/stop times in a database when printing the slips.

Called me out with that first sentence

Obligatory "be careful with that poison paper" warning![1]

[1]: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

An alternative to consider are dot matrix / impact printers.

They are used in kitchens, as heat sensitive paper doesn't work well there. It's just plain paper and an ink ribbon.

Same underlying protocol as thermal printers, so the code is mostly plug and play.

They often can print in two colours (red and black). And sound like the 1980s.

You can buy phenol free paper

https://www.pca.state.mn.us/business-with-us/bpa-and-bps-in-...

Can we not print full pdf type stuff with thermal printers?

I just bought one a couple weeks ago actually.