Quick answer: Nextar does not talk to your printer directly. It hands the receipt to the Windows print spooler, exactly as Word or Notepad would. That single fact changes what you should look for: the deciding factor is not ESC/POS support but whether the printer has a proper Windows driver. Nextar's own documentation is explicit — without the manufacturer's driver installed, the system “will only be able to issue receipt templates in plain text format”.
For a standard counter we recommend the NBTP-8080 (80mm, auto cutter, USB) — it installs under the standard POS-80 driver that Nextar publishes instructions for. On a tighter budget the NBTP-5880 (58mm) covers short dockets. Order the USB version unless you have a specific reason not to.
Nextar prints through Windows, not through the printer
Most receipt printer guides assume the POS software sends ESC/POS commands straight to the printer. Nextar works differently, and it says so in its own help centre:
“Nex does not communicate directly with the physical printer, but rather with the Windows print spooler, which is the service responsible for managing the computer's document queue.”
Read that again, because everything else follows from it. Your receipt is not a stream of printer commands. It is a document, handed to Windows, printed the same way a spreadsheet is printed.
Three practical consequences:
- The Windows driver is the whole game. A printer with excellent ESC/POS support and a poor Windows driver will disappoint you here. A printer with a solid, correctly installed driver will just work.
- You can test the printer without opening Nextar. Nextar tells you to do exactly this: type something in Notepad and print it. If Notepad prints, Nextar will almost certainly print.
- Layout problems are driver problems. When text is cut off at the edge, the fix is in the Windows driver's margin settings, not inside Nextar.
If you have read our guides for uniCenta oPOS or StoreHub, this is a genuinely different model. uniCenta lets you send raw ESC/POS over a virtual COM port. StoreHub runs on a tablet where the whole question is network configuration. Nextar sits in a third category: a Windows application that prints like a Windows application.
What to look for when the spooler is in the middle
Given the above, the buying criteria reorder themselves:
| Criterion | Why it matters on Nextar |
|---|---|
| Windows driver available | Decisive. Without it you get plain-text receipts only. |
| USB connection | Nextar recommends USB for thermal roll printers — simplest driver path, no port mapping. |
| Documented print width | The alignment problems below come from this number, not from the paper width. |
| RJ11 cash drawer port | Needed if a drawer is in scope — the drawer is fired by the printer, not by Nextar. |
| ESC/POS command set | Still useful, and every printer we sell has it — but it is not what decides the outcome here. |
Installing the driver: the POS-58 / POS-80 route
Nextar publishes a step-by-step guide for installing a printer under the POS-58 or POS-80 driver. This matters to you as a buyer: it is the generic driver family used by the great majority of Chinese-built thermal receipt printers, ours included. You are on a documented path, not improvising.
The sequence in Nextar's guide is:
- Download and run the driver installer.
- Accept the agreement, choose the install folder, complete the installation.
- Click SELECT PRINTER and choose POS-58 or POS-80 to match your paper width.
- Click PORTS and select the port the printer is connected to — USB in most installations.
- Click BEGIN SETUP, allow the driver software to install if Windows asks, then close.
- Run a Windows test print before opening Nextar.
Then, inside Nextar, select the print template that matches: the 58mm template for a 58mm printer, the 80mm template for an 80mm one. Mismatching these is a common and easily avoided cause of bad output.
That last step in the installer — the Windows test print — is the one people skip. Do not skip it. It separates “the printer is not installed properly” from “Nextar is configured wrongly”, and those are two completely different afternoons.
The 80mm paper, 72mm print area problem
This is the single most common source of confusion with thermal printers on any Windows POS, and Nextar calls it out directly: some printers take an 80mm roll but their actual print area is narrower — Nextar's documentation cites 74mm.
The reason is physical. An 80mm roll is 80mm of paper, but the print head does not span the full width; there is a margin at each edge where the head simply cannot reach. On our 80mm models the printable width is 72mm (576 dots at 203dpi). On our 58mm models it is 48mm (384 dots).
The symptoms when this is not accounted for:
- Text cut off at the right edge
- Columns clipped on one side
- Excessive blank paper fed between receipts
Nextar's answer is twofold, and both halves are worth knowing. It ships specific templates to correct the alignment for this scenario, and margin adjustments are made inside the Windows printer driver rather than in Nextar. If your receipts are clipping, that is where to go — driver properties, page setup, margins.
When you order from us, ask for the print width in writing. We publish it on every product page for exactly this reason. A supplier who can only tell you the paper width has not understood the question.
80mm or 58mm?
80mm is the default for a shop or restaurant counter. At 203dpi it gives 48 characters per line — enough for item name, quantity and price in readable columns.
58mm gives 32 characters per line. That is comfortable for a queue ticket or a short drinks docket and tight for a normal itemised receipt: long product names truncate and columns get cramped. Where it wins is footprint and paper cost, which makes it right for a stall, a kiosk, or a delivery counter printing short dockets.
For most Nextar installations — small retail, a shop with an inventory of named products — 80mm is the safer specification.
NETBYE models for Nextar
| Model | Paper | Print width | Speed | Cutter | Interfaces | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NBTP-8080 | 80mm | 72mm | 160mm/s | Auto | USB / USB+LAN | Standard counter |
| NBTP-8050 | 80mm | 72mm | 200mm/s | Auto | USB / Serial / Ethernet | Busier checkout |
| NBTP-8020 | 80mm | 72mm | 180–200mm/s | Auto | USB / USB+LAN | Standard counter, budget |
| NBTP-5880 | 58mm | 48mm | 90mm/s | Manual | USB / Serial / Parallel / Ethernet / BT | Kiosk, stall, short dockets |
All are 203dpi direct thermal with ESC/POS support, and all install under the POS-58 / POS-80 driver family that Nextar documents. Browse the full range of thermal receipt printers, or narrow to 80mm and 58mm.
Ordering advice for Nextar: specify USB, and specify a model with an RJ11 drawer port if a cash drawer is in scope — retrofitting that is not possible.
How we compare to the printers Nextar names
Nextar's cash drawer documentation names three printers as examples of models with the required RJ11 port: the Epson TM-T20, the Bematech MP4200 TH and the Elgin i9. Two of those are Brazilian brands, which tells you something useful about where Nextar's user base is.
We are not going to tell you those are bad printers. Epson, Bematech and Elgin all build solid hardware with good local support in Brazil, and if you need same-city warranty service through a Brazilian distributor, that is a real argument.
What we offer is a different trade. Our 80mm models match them on the specifications that determine the outcome — 203dpi, 576 dots per line, 72mm print width, auto cutter, RJ11 drawer port, ESC/POS — at direct wholesale pricing, because you are buying from the brand owner rather than through a distribution chain. For a shop buying one printer, local warranty may well be worth more than the price difference. For a distributor or integrator placing volume orders into the region, the arithmetic usually goes the other way.
One thing we will say plainly: import duties and taxes into Brazil are significant and vary by product classification. Factor landed cost, not unit price. We would rather you run that calculation before ordering than after.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need an ESC/POS printer for Nextar?
Not in the way you might assume. Because Nextar prints through the Windows spooler, what you need is a printer with a working Windows driver. Our printers support ESC/POS as well, which is useful if you later move to software that drives the printer directly — but on Nextar the driver is what decides it.
How do I test whether my printer will work before buying?
Install it in Windows, open Notepad, type a line and print it. Nextar recommends this test explicitly. If Notepad prints correctly, Nextar will print.
My receipts are cut off at the edge. What is wrong?
Almost always the print area versus paper width mismatch, or a template mismatch. Check that you selected the 80mm template for an 80mm printer, then adjust margins in the Windows driver properties. Nextar also provides templates that correct alignment for printers whose print area is narrower than the roll.
Only plain text is printing, with no formatting.
That is the documented symptom of the manufacturer's driver not being installed. Install the POS-58 or POS-80 driver and repeat the Windows test print.
Can I use a network or Bluetooth printer?
Nextar recommends USB for thermal roll printers. Our models are available with LAN and Bluetooth interfaces, and a network printer installed correctly in Windows is visible to the spooler like any other — but USB is the simplest and best-documented path on this software, and we would specify it unless you have a concrete reason not to.
Does the cash drawer plug into the computer?
No. It connects to the printer over RJ11, and the printer fires it — the process does not go through Nextar at all. See our Nextar cash drawer guide.
A note on this guide. The hardware side above — print widths, dot counts, driver behaviour, the RJ11 drawer circuit, interface trade-offs — is what we know from the products we supply, and it holds for any Windows POS that prints through the spooler. The Nextar-specific behaviour is drawn from Nextar's own published documentation, quoted where it matters; menu paths and templates can change between versions, so confirm current details with Nextar. If something here did not match your installation, tell us and we will correct this page. We would rather publish something accurate than something impressive.
Get pricing
NETBYE supplies distributors, system integrators and retailers across South America and worldwide. Our printers are built by our partner factories in Shenzhen and sold under our own model range — we handle specification, quality control and support, so you deal with one supplier rather than several factories. Direct wholesale pricing, low MOQ on first orders, and OEM/ODM covering branding, packaging and firmware defaults.
Tell us which models, what quantity, which country and how you plan to connect them, and you will get an accurate quote in one reply — including an honest answer if we think a different model suits you better. Request a quote.
Related guides
These guides form a set. If you are specifying a complete till, the other hardware for Nextar POS is covered here:
- Barcode scanner for Nextar POS
- Cash drawer for Nextar POS
- Label printer for Nextar POS
- POS terminal for Nextar POS
And if you are comparing across POS software, the same hardware for other systems: