What are the upsides and the downsides of thermal paper esp. for receipts?

We used to use it at the theater for the tickets. The printers used it so we never had to worry about toner or ink. It just printed with heat. The weird thing is if you placed a ticket under a fluorescent bulb for a few hours (that doesn’t give off much heat) the ticket would turn black. So we thought they were sensitive to light to. Which might be to prevent the photocopying of tickets. But nobody really cared enough to photocopy a ticket to see what it did.

And I am fairly certain that receipts at Wal*Mart are printed on paper where the text disappears in a few weeks so you can’t return shit.

Goods and bads. We use them in my area:

1) thermal paper is generally more expensive than regular paper. (That used to be more true than it is today—there are so many receipt printers nowadays that the price has come down.) However, dot matrix printers need to have ribbons changed from time to time, so it may equal out.

2) thermal printers are MUCH quieter than others.

3) as @johnpowell noted, in heat or excessive light, the printing disappears. (Although I disagree with John – I have a receipt on my bulletin board, above my desk, which is at least 3 years old, and the printing has never faded)

4) I have printed text, graphics, QR codes, etc – on receipts, and they are all perfectly readable. I don’t know of anything that it can’t do.

What is run about receipt printers is when you try and print something sized for 8.5×11” on a 3 inch printer….. ugly.

The paper may be more expensive but I imagine the running costs are lower as it doesn’t require ink and printer ink is expensive. But my experience is they don’t last long and soon fade and become unreadable so if you need to keep them long term you’d have to scan or photograph them. @johnpowell I wasn’t aware they couldn’t be photocopied.

But how is it that this flaws (sometimes that you end up with a blank piece of paper, not just hard to read) over time, and that it can’t be photocopied, (which I didn’t know either) etc., crazy enough for the consummer dept of government, to get industry to fix the problem? It is not like the stores etc. have been making the general public aware of it. Is there anything that is not on thermal paper? Library printouts, bank transaction records are all on it

@flo, m y experience is not the same as john’s – I have to photocpy them when I turn in my receipts for expenses at work. Never a problem.

Maybe the photocopier is at fault, not the receipt?

@elbanditoroso thank you about the photocopying. But what about the rest of it. The average person is not likely to suspect or to know to make a photocopy from just out of the blue. It is just by accident that people end up knowing.

Thanks @johnpowell, @elbanditoroso, @downtide.