PDF Printing

Print.js was primarily written to help us print PDF files directly within our apps, without leaving the interface, and no use of embeds. For unique situations where there is no need for users to open or download the PDF files, and instead, they just need to print them.

One scenario where this is useful, for example, is when users request to print reports that are generated on the server side. These reports are sent back as PDF files. There is no need to open these files before printing them. Print.js offers a quick way to print these files within our apps.

PDF files must be served from the same domain as your app is hosted under. Print.js uses iframe to load files before printing them, therefore, it is limited by the Same Origin Policy. This helps preventing Cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.

Example

Add a button to print a PDF file located on your hosting server:


 <button type="button" onclick="printJS('docs/printjs.pdf')">
    Print PDF
 </button>

Result:

For large files, you can show a message to the user when loading files. 


 <button type="button" onclick="printJS({printable:'docs/xx_large_printjs.pdf', type:'pdf', showModal:true})">
    Print PDF with Message
 </button>

Result:

The library supports base64 PDF printing: 


 <button type="button" onclick="printJS({printable: base64, type: 'pdf', base64: true})">
    Print PDF with Message
 </button>

Result:

HTML Printing

Sometimes we just want to print selected parts of a HTML page, and that can be tricky. With Print.js, we can easily pass the id of the element that we want to print. The element can be of any tag, as long it has a unique id. The library will try to print it very close to how it looks on screen, and at the same time, it will create a printer friendly format for it.

Example

Add a print button to a HTML form:


 <form method="post" action="#" id="printJS-form">
    ...
 </form>

 <button type="button" onclick="printJS('printJS-form', 'html')">
    Print Form
 </button>

Result:

Name:
Email:
Message:

Print.js accepts an object with arguments. Let's print the form again, but now we will add a header to the page:


 <button type="button" onclick="printJS({ printable: 'printJS-form', type: 'html', header: 'PrintJS - Form Element Selection' })">
    Print Form with Header
 </button>

Result:

Broke Amateurs Emma «2026 Edition»

"Broke" had become a quiet companion—less a label than an atmosphere. The fridge was a hollow echo of hunger; cans and jars echoed their emptiness like distant drums. Emma moved through the city with pockets turned out, not for show but for economy: the loose change that decided whether she could duck into a gallery opening or linger at a café. She learned to morph desire into small, manageable joys—finding a book with a dog-eared dedication in a free box, discovering a street musician whose violin swelled exactly at dusk, a secondhand dress that fit as if stitched from memory.

Emma learned the city in fragments: the clatter of late trains, the sour-sweet tang of coffee from a corner cart, the rumble of bus engines beneath her apartment window. She lived in a room so small the bed leaned against the radiator, a single lamp that burned like a promise, and a bookshelf half-full of paperbacks she could not afford to replace. Her hands were perpetually ink-stained from nights of freelance edits and mornings spent filling out applications that never answered.

She and the others—amateurs in the grand sense—clustered in half-lit studios and rehearsal rooms, scattering ambition like seed. Their work was earnest, often raw: sketches pinned to corkboards, poems read aloud to chairs and a single trusting cat, rehearsals that started with laughter and ended with silence as bills mounted and the radiator coughed its last heat. They traded favors more out of necessity than camaraderie; a haircut for a piano lesson, a pot of stew for an evening of multitasked babysitting. Skills became currency. Conversation was sharpened into something efficient, then softened into warmth when the wine—cheap, shared

JSON Printing

A simple and quick way to print dynamic data or array of javascript objects.

Example

We have the following data set in our javascript code. This would probably come from an AJAX call to a server API: broke amateurs emma


 someJSONdata = [
    {
       name: 'John Doe',
       email: 'john@doe.com',
       phone: '111-111-1111'
    },
    {
       name: 'Barry Allen',
       email: 'barry@flash.com',
       phone: '222-222-2222'
    },
    {
       name: 'Cool Dude',
       email: 'cool@dude.com',
       phone: '333-333-3333'
    }
 ]

We can pass it to Print.js:


 <button type="button" onclick="printJS({printable: someJSONdata, properties: ['name', 'email', 'phone'], type: 'json'})">
    Print JSON Data
 </button>

Result:

We can style the data grid by passing some custom css:


 <button type="button" onclick="printJS({
	    printable: someJSONdata,
	    properties: ['name', 'email', 'phone'],
	    type: 'json',
	    gridHeaderStyle: 'color: red;  border: 2px solid #3971A5;',
	    gridStyle: 'border: 2px solid #3971A5;'
	})">
    Print JSON Data
 </button>

Result:

We can customize the table header text sending an object array


 <button type="button" onclick="printJS({
	    printable: someJSONdata,
	    properties: [
		{ field: 'name', displayName: 'Full Name'},
		{ field: 'email', displayName: 'E-mail'},
		{ field: 'phone', displayName: 'Phone'}
	    ],
	    type: 'json'
        })">
    Print with custom table header text
 </button>

Result:

JSON, HTML and Image print can receive a raw HTML header:


<button type="button" onclick="printJS({
		printable: someJSONdata,
		type: 'json',
		properties: ['name', 'email', 'phone'],
		header: '<h3 class="custom-h3">My custom header</h3>',
		style: '.custom-h3 { color: red; }'
	  })">
	Print header raw html
</button>

Result:

"Broke" had become a quiet companion—less a label than an atmosphere. The fridge was a hollow echo of hunger; cans and jars echoed their emptiness like distant drums. Emma moved through the city with pockets turned out, not for show but for economy: the loose change that decided whether she could duck into a gallery opening or linger at a café. She learned to morph desire into small, manageable joys—finding a book with a dog-eared dedication in a free box, discovering a street musician whose violin swelled exactly at dusk, a secondhand dress that fit as if stitched from memory.

Emma learned the city in fragments: the clatter of late trains, the sour-sweet tang of coffee from a corner cart, the rumble of bus engines beneath her apartment window. She lived in a room so small the bed leaned against the radiator, a single lamp that burned like a promise, and a bookshelf half-full of paperbacks she could not afford to replace. Her hands were perpetually ink-stained from nights of freelance edits and mornings spent filling out applications that never answered.

She and the others—amateurs in the grand sense—clustered in half-lit studios and rehearsal rooms, scattering ambition like seed. Their work was earnest, often raw: sketches pinned to corkboards, poems read aloud to chairs and a single trusting cat, rehearsals that started with laughter and ended with silence as bills mounted and the radiator coughed its last heat. They traded favors more out of necessity than camaraderie; a haircut for a piano lesson, a pot of stew for an evening of multitasked babysitting. Skills became currency. Conversation was sharpened into something efficient, then softened into warmth when the wine—cheap, shared

Browser Compatibility

Currently, not all library features are working between browsers. Below are the results of tests done with these major browsers, using their latest versions.

Google Chrome
Safari
Firefox
Edge
Opera
Internet Explorer
PDF
HTML
Images
JSON

Thank you BrowserStack for the support. Amazing cross-browser testing tool.

broke amateurs emma

Development and Support

Please report issues and feature requests in GitHub Issues.

If you have questions when implementing or using the library, ask about it in StackOverflow.

Pull requests are very welcome! Make sure your patches are well tested: README.md.

Print.js was built from the hard work of all these contributors.