Two apps, one name
There are three things to tell apart, all with similar names:
- Order Printer (legacy) – Shopify’s original, free app. Deprecated.
- Shopify Order Printer – Shopify’s successor, also free, with the same features and better performance.
- Order Printer Pro – a separate third-party app with extended features. Not affected by the deprecation.
You can see which version you’re running in the app list of your Shopify admin: it says either “Order Printer” or “Shopify Order Printer”. Having both installed at the same time is not a mistake – during the migration, they are actually supposed to be installed side by side.
What the deprecation actually means
Shopify puts it clearly in its Help Center: the old Order Printer app is deprecated and is neither supported nor maintained. In Shopify’s own words, anyone who keeps using it risks disruptions or printing errors (source: Shopify Help Center, retrieved August 28, 2026).
Two things are often misunderstood here. First: Shopify has not announced a shutdown date. The old app stays available for now so there is time to migrate – if you still print with it today, you won’t be left without documents tomorrow. Second: only Shopify’s old app is affected, not Order Printer Pro and not other printing apps from the App Store.
Because Shopify hasn’t named a cut-off date, any specific shutdown date is speculation. The reason to migrate is real; the urgency is not.
Migrating your templates step by step
You don’t have to rewrite your custom Liquid templates – Shopify includes an import that automatically updates the Liquid variables. According to Shopify, most templates then work unchanged.
- Install the new “Shopify Order Printer” app.
- Open the app in your admin and go to the templates.
- Click “Import” and confirm the import in the dialog.
- Review the imported templates and do a test print.
The most important point appears in Shopify’s instructions as an explicit warning: don’t uninstall the old app before the import is finished. Both apps must be installed during the transfer – otherwise the template source is gone before the destination has read it.
If a more complex template doesn’t look right after the import, it’s usually down to Liquid constructs the automatic conversion couldn’t resolve. Shopify has a dedicated troubleshooting section for this in its migration guide.
If something is off after the import
The automatic conversion of Liquid variables covers the common cases, but not every custom construct. Typical pitfalls that show up in a test print:
- custom loops over line items that access field names that no longer exist in that form
- hard-coded amounts or tax rates that never came from the order data
- fonts or images embedded from external URLs that are missing in the printout
- page breaks that land in the wrong place on long orders
Practical advice: after the import, deliberately do a test print of a difficult order – one with many line items, a discount and a foreign address. Any template looks good on an order with a single line item.
What you can print with Order Printer
The app isn’t limited to invoices. Three document types are common, and you set each one up as a separate template:
- Invoice or receipt to include for the customer
- Delivery note or packing slip for the warehouse
- Pick list that combines several orders into one list
The pick list in particular is a good reason to keep Order Printer even when your invoices have long been created elsewhere: it’s a purely internal warehouse document with no tax requirements, and a freely designable print template is exactly the right tool for it.
Before migrating: back up your templates
The import transfers your templates, but it doesn’t give you a backup outside Shopify. If you’ve spent years refining a template, the one-minute extra step is worth it: open each template in the old app, select all of the Liquid code and save it in a text file.
The reason is less fear of a faulty import than being able to compare afterwards. If an imported template looks different than before, you want to be able to check line by line what the automatic conversion changed. Without the original, all you can do is guess.
What Order Printer is good for
The app does one thing and does it reliably: it prints documents for your orders, and you decide how they look using HTML and Liquid.
- Quick printing in the admin, including for several selected orders
- Full layout control for anyone comfortable with HTML and Liquid
- Free
For many stores, that’s exactly the right choice – especially if you print individual documents now and then and enjoy fine-tuning the template yourself.
Where a print template inherently stops
Order Printer is a printing tool, not an invoicing system. That comes with limits no template in the world can remove:
| Requirement | Print template | Invoicing system |
|---|---|---|
| Document is created | When you print | When the order is paid |
| Sequential number | Has to come from somewhere else | Assigned and tracked automatically |
| Tax case identified | You build it in as a condition | Determined from country, VAT ID and tax regime |
| Sent to the customer | By hand | Automatically by email |
| Correction after a refund | New template by hand | Credit note, automatically if you want |
| Changing the layout | In the code | A choice in the settings |
The second point in particular is underestimated. An invoice number has to run in sequence and be unique. A print template can’t assign it – it prints whatever it’s given. So if you only work with Order Printer, you still manage the number range yourself.
Why a print template can’t assign an invoice number
This is where most misunderstandings arise, so here’s the reason behind it in brief. A Liquid template is a display layer: it’s handed the data of an order and renders it. It doesn’t remember anything. If you print the same order again tomorrow, the same template runs with the same data – and produces the same result.
A sequential invoice number needs exactly the opposite: a counter that knows which number was assigned last, hands it out exactly once and permanently links it to that one order. That’s state, and something has to store it.
There are workarounds – some stores use the Shopify order number as the invoice number. That’s permitted as long as it stays sequential and unique, but there’s a catch: cancelled orders and test orders use up numbers too, and the number range doesn’t restart every year. If you go this route, do it deliberately and agree it with your tax advisor rather than letting it happen by accident.
Belegio as an alternative – with a different focus
Belegio isn’t a better printing app but a different approach: the document is created on its own as soon as the order is paid, gets its number, knows the tax case and goes out to the customer by email. You can still print at any time – individually or in bulk for many orders.
Templates without HTML and Liquid
If what you’re really after when searching for an “order printer template” is a good-looking document design without coding, in Belegio you pick one of six layouts – Modern, Bold, Compact, Classic, Minimal and a business letter laid out according to DIN 5008 (the German standard for business letters) with 20 styles – and add your logo and brand color. A live preview shows right away how the document looks.
→ All the ways to customize your invoice template
Tax cases without building them into the template
- Germany 19 % and 7 %, Austria 20 %, 13 % and 10 %
- Small-business scheme (Kleinunternehmerregelung) with the legal notice of the respective country of establishment
- EU B2B with reverse charge, including VAT ID validation
- One-Stop Shop (OSS) for EU B2C and tax-exempt exports to non-EU countries
Order Printer, Order Printer Pro or Belegio?
None of the three options is the right one by default – they solve different problems:
- You print now and then, like designing in Liquid yourself and manage your number range elsewhere? The free Shopify app is enough. In that case, switch to the new version.
- You want to stick with printing but get more convenience and ready-made designs? Then Order Printer Pro is worth a look.
- You want the invoice to be created without any effort on your part, get a number, go out by email and handle German and European tax logic correctly without code? That’s what Belegio is built for.
If you want to automate, you’ll find the setup in detail here:
→ Send Shopify invoices automatically
Note: Information about Shopify apps reflects the state as of August 28, 2026. Tax statements are a general overview and do not replace advice from a tax advisor.
Belegio is free during the launch phase – all features, unlimited documents, no credit card. This is a launch-phase offer, not a permanent pricing commitment.
