Tauri Plugin Printer v2

Printer discovery, PDF/HTML printing, printer configuration, and print-queue management for Tauri v2 on Windows.

Version 2 is a clean Tauri v2 API. The old v1 functions (printers, print, print_file, jobs, and the snake_case job actions) are intentionally not exported.

Features

List printers and read one printer by its stable base64 id.
Read or change the Windows default printer.
Read color, collate, duplex, and paper configuration.
Print an existing PDF path or in-memory PDF bytes.
Render structured text, images, tables, QR codes, barcodes, or arbitrary HTML to PDF and print it.
List, inspect, pause, resume, restart, and remove spooler jobs.
Validate printer ids, job ids, PDF signatures, and command failures without panics.
Tauri v2 permissions separated into read, print, queue-management, and default-printer-management groups.

Windows is currently the only supported platform. The bundled PDF renderer is SumatraPDF 3.4.6; see Third-party software.

Install

Keep the Rust crate and JavaScript package on the same major and minor version.

cargo add tauri-plugin-printer@2.0.3
pnpm add tauri-plugin-printer@2.0.3

fn main() {
    tauri::Builder::default()
        .plugin(tauri_plugin_printer::init())
        .run(tauri::generate_context!())
        .expect("error while running Tauri application");
}

Permissions

Read-only commands are included in printer:default. Printing and mutations must be enabled explicitly in a capability:

{
  "$schema": "../gen/schemas/desktop-schema.json",
  "identifier": "main",
  "windows": ["main"],
  "permissions": [
    "core:default",
    "printer:default",
    "printer:printing",
    "printer:job-management",
    "printer:default-printer-management"
  ]
}

Only grant the groups that the application actually uses.

Printer discovery and configuration

import {
  getPrinters,
  getPrinter,
  getDefaultPrinter,
  getPrinterCapabilities,
  setDefaultPrinter,
} from 'tauri-plugin-printer'

const printers = await getPrinters()
const printer = await getPrinter(printers[0].id)
const currentDefault = await getDefaultPrinter()
const capabilities = await getPrinterCapabilities(printer.id)

await setDefaultPrinter(printer.id)
// A name can be used explicitly too:
await setDefaultPrinter({ name: 'Office Printer' })

get_printers, get_printer, and print_html remain available because those names were already part of the in-progress v2 branch. They are not v1 compatibility aliases.

Print a PDF

Printer selection is optional. If neither id nor name is supplied, the Windows default printer is used.

import { printFile } from 'tauri-plugin-printer'

await printFile({
  id: printer.id,
  path: 'C:\\documents\\invoice.pdf',
  print_setting: {
    paper: 'A4',
    orientation: 'portrait',
    method: 'simplex',
    scale: 'fit',
    color_type: 'monochrome',
    repeat: 1,
    range: { from: 1, to: 2 },
  },
})

const response = await fetch('/invoice.pdf')
await printFile({
  file: await response.arrayBuffer(),
  name: 'Office Printer',
})

The plugin never deletes a PDF path supplied by the application. In-memory PDFs use a plugin-owned temporary file that is removed after the renderer exits.

Print HTML or structured receipt data

import { printData, printHtml } from 'tauri-plugin-printer'

await printData(
  [
    { type: 'text', value: 'Receipt #1042', style: { fontSize: '20px', fontWeight: '700' } },
    { type: 'qrCode', value: 'https://example.com/orders/1042', width: 96, height: 96 },
    {
      type: 'table',
      tableHeader: ['Item', 'Total'],
      tableBody: [['Coffee', '$4.00'], ['Cake', '$6.00']],
      tableFooter: ['Grand total', '$10.00'],
    },
  ],
  { id: printer.id, page_size: { width: 300, height: 500 } },
)

await printHtml('<h1>Shipping label</h1><p>Order #1042</p>', {
  name: 'Label Printer',
  page_size: { width: 400, height: 600 },
})

Set preview: true to open a preview Webview instead of submitting a print job. Preview-window creation may require the corresponding Tauri core webview permission in the application.

Print queue

import { getJobs, getJob, pauseJob, resumeJob, restartJob, removeJob } from 'tauri-plugin-printer'

const allJobs = await getJobs()
const printerJobs = await getJobs(printer.id)
const selected = await getJob(printerJobs[0].id)

await pauseJob(selected.id)
await resumeJob(selected.id)
await restartJob(selected.id)
await removeJob(selected.id)

Calling a job action without an id applies it to every currently visible print job.

Why PDF, and when not to use it

PDF is the best general-purpose route for invoices, labels, reports, and documents because it preserves layout and delegates device-specific work to the Windows driver.

For high-volume thermal/POS printers, RAW ESC/POS, ZPL, or CPCL is faster and produces sharper device-native text and barcodes. It is not included in this release because raw bytes are printer-language-specific and need a separate high-risk permission. A future printRaw API should target the Windows spooler directly and require the caller to declare the printer language.

Third-party software

The bundled bin/sm executable is SumatraPDF 3.4.6, used for unattended PDF printing. SumatraPDF is distributed under GPLv3/AGPLv3 terms; downstream distributors are responsible for satisfying those terms. See THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md.

License

Plugin source code is MIT licensed. See LICENSE.

tauri-plugin-printer 2.0.3