[feat] Provide print API

[alimehasin]

Describe the problem

Tauri lacks a print API and this make it very difficult for electron based apps that perform lots of work with printers to migrate to Tauri, there are many use cases

1. Unable to print a page if it is hidden visible: false (window.print() triggered automatically after page load)
2. Unable to close the page after the printing dialog is closed (I haven't found any way to know if the dialog still open)
3. Unable to perform silent printing

Describe the solution you'd like

Provide print API

Alternatives considered

At least I hope to see an event the get fired when the printing dialog closed

Additional context

I have seen Print to Printer and related options checked in this issue But electron has rich API regarding to printing comparing to Tauri

[alimehasin]

Unable to close the page after the printing dialog is closed (I haven't found any way to know if the dialog still open)

It turns out that there is a JS event called afterprint that will solves this problem, you can read more about it here

[rizwan92]

@alimehasin how this event afterprint will fix the printing in tauri ? i am very curious to know because i am facing this problem for very long , i am not able to launch my application because of printin . many people are trying to figure out how this process will help in providing print solution for tauri

how this event will tell how may printers are connected to the system? how this event tell which printer is default printer how to stop print dialog in chrome how to adjust the margin and custom print settings by this event ?

[alimehasin]

Hello @rizwan92, the afterprint event won't fix these issues, it will only fix one problem which is

Unable to close the page after the printing dialog is closed (I haven't found any way to know if the dialog still open)

As quoted in my previous comment

[rizwan92]

I do not know why this issue's priority is medium. It is a very essential part of building a desktop application. I really want to launch my application using Tauri

[Beanow]

@rizwan92 Tauri is an open source project depending on it's contributors. If you need this feature urgently, maybe you can help get the ball rolling?

For example by finding out the cross platform support by the underlying webviews for printing, and seeing what the common ground is?

Referencing https://tauri.app/v1/references/webview-versions/ if you need more insight in the webviews.

[ihekui]

I am looking forward to the silent printing API, because my app needs this API to print small tickets and price tags

[rizwan92]

@Beanow I could not find any cross-platform solution for webviews. I tried writing my own solution in rust but it is way too hard for me I think I need to practice more rust first to get it done. i will open the source code so other can get help and contirbute

[noearaujo]

Now it's stable: https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/WebView2Feedback/issues/1331

[Bukmopbl4]

Now it's stable: MicrosoftEdge/WebView2Feedback#1331

Let me understand, is this functionality not yet available in Tauri? Is the problem currently unresolved?

[FabianLars]

Correct, it's still unresolved. This is also why this GitHub issue is still open :)

[FabianLars]

I opened a tracking issue in our plugin repo where this feature will be implemented at some point: https://github.com/tauri-apps/plugins-workspace/issues/293. Please do not take this as a "We'll implement this feature now", this is just me trying to get the ball rolling.

[alfianlensundev]

To perform a silent print, you can use plugin Tauri Plugin Printer. However, currently, it only supports Windows.

[wcldyx]

要执行静默打印，您可以使用插件 Tauri 插件打印机。但是，目前，它仅支持Windows。

However, it must send files in PDF format, and its printing function is not as good as "electron".

[wcldyx]

Is there a good solution now? I need to silently print an entire long webpage.

[juancarlosgzs]

The only thing keeping my team away from Tauri is this issue, is there any ETA, attempt or desire to actually implement this?

[FabianLars]

ETA?

No.

attempt?

Nothing recently that i know of.

desire?

Yes, otherwise we would close this issue.

[dev-itzarun]

Is there any solution for this now , Any plugins ?

I think Webview2 actually have Methods For this : webviewPrint

[Lerado]

Ok I think I'm kinda stucked by this lol.

Please, is it at least possible to use native window.print() with a html visible content ?

[FabianLars]

As far as i know window.print() should work.

[Lerado]

As far as i know window.print() should work.

Ok I think that would be a workaround for now. Thank you for the good work there. Glad I bet on Tauri when it started back in the days xD.

[dnguyenfs]

any progress on this guy? this seem to be critical problem already?

[bforbiggy]

This is really important, I can't use tauri until this is developed

[Bukmopbl4]

I'm concerned about this issue as well. For now, where I need to use silent printing, I use Electron. As far as I know, you can print using window.print() if the standard print dialog doesn't bother you. You could also go the extra mile with POS commands on the printer or write a printing module in another language, integrate it into a Tauri binary, and pass the necessary data for printing to it. All options seem to be a bit of a hassle if you need to print HTML receipts.

[mildred]

There is an issue generating PDF on webkitgtk, it seems not really possible given the upstream bug https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=212814

I started an implementation of print options, but PDF generation might be difficult to get where webkitgtk is used.

[ohellel]

I need this api its really important, I hope this gets resolved as soon as possible.

[mildred]

For now I workaround this by including node and puppeteer as a sidecar executable, but increases the binary size a lot

See:

• https://github.com/mildred/web_docs/blob/74054afd143ab0c38b73300bf8c5eacaafcdec4a/package.json#L8-L12
• https://github.com/mildred/web_docs/blob/74054afd143ab0c38b73300bf8c5eacaafcdec4a/copy_node.js
• https://github.com/mildred/web_docs/blob/74054afd143ab0c38b73300bf8c5eacaafcdec4a/src-tauri/tauri.conf.json#L67-L73
• https://github.com/mildred/web_docs/blob/74054afd143ab0c38b73300bf8c5eacaafcdec4a/src/plugins/paged.js#L135-L153

[mildred]

There is perhaps a way to make WebKitGtk print using the PDF print printer, but this virtual printer might not be programmable as well as the others.

[ohellel]

To perform a silent print, you can use plugin Tauri Plugin Printer. However, currently, it only supports Windows.

This plugin (tauri-plugin-printer) is just a hack it doesn't actually print the current webview instead it uses a library called html2pdf which is not that good unfortunately for many use cases.

Nothing beats the browser at rendering and producing high fidelity pdf files.

So this feature is really essential.

[ohellel]

For now I workaround this by including node and puppeteer as a sidecar executable, but increases the binary size a lot

See:

• https://github.com/mildred/web_docs/blob/74054afd143ab0c38b73300bf8c5eacaafcdec4a/package.json#L8-L12
• https://github.com/mildred/web_docs/blob/74054afd143ab0c38b73300bf8c5eacaafcdec4a/copy_node.js
• https://github.com/mildred/web_docs/blob/74054afd143ab0c38b73300bf8c5eacaafcdec4a/src-tauri/tauri.conf.json#L67-L73
• https://github.com/mildred/web_docs/blob/74054afd143ab0c38b73300bf8c5eacaafcdec4a/src/plugins/paged.js#L135-L153

Just use electron instead of tauri+puppeteer, plus electron has multi window feature, child window, silent printing and a lot more.

But if tauri can catch up to it, it will be a better solution.

[mildred]

I think I'll stop there at my attempts at PDF generation, I updated the PR to keep the ability to define options for printing, but I will find another way for generating PDF. Most probably I'll spawn a local web server and open the user browser to it and let the user use the system print dialog for PDF generation or real printing.