Printing

Pages print through the desktop’s own print dialog: the XDG print portal on Linux and the system’s print dialog on macOS and Windows. window.print() works as in a browser, and the package’s print adds printing a single element and printing files.

Printing the page

import { print } from "@lantharos/sabine";

await print.page();

print.page() prints the page, like window.print(). Use @media print styles to shape the printed version, as you would on the web.

Printing one element

import { print } from "@lantharos/sabine";

await print.element(document.querySelector("#receipt")!);

print.element() prints one element on its own, without the rest of the page around it. Images, canvases, SVGs and videos are scaled to fit the paper while keeping their proportions.

Printing files

import { print } from "@lantharos/sabine";

const printed = await print.files(["/home/ana/Invoice.pdf", "/home/ana/Beach.jpg"], {
  title: "Invoice and receipt",
});
if (!printed) {
  showHint("Printing was cancelled");
}

print.files(paths, options) prints PDF, image and text files as one document, in the order you list them. Each image and text file starts on a sheet of its own.

Option	Default	Meaning
`title`	the first file’s name	The name of the print job.

Sabine tells files apart by their contents, not their names:

PDF files print as they are.
Images are the formats Chromium shows: PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, AVIF, BMP, ICO and SVG.
Text is any other file without NUL bytes.

print.files resolves false when the person cancels the Linux print dialog, and true otherwise. It rejects with a message naming any file it can’t print, and when the list is empty.

From Rust, print files from a window with BridgeEventEmitter::print_files, passing the window’s id, the paths and an optional title. Pages don’t learn the outcome of a print started this way.

use std::path::PathBuf;

use sabine::SabineProcess;

fn print_invoice(process: &SabineProcess) {
    if let Some(window) = process.id() {
        process.bridge_event_emitter().print_files(
            window,
            &[PathBuf::from("/home/ana/Invoice.pdf")],
            Some("Invoice"),
        );
    }
}

On each desktop

Chromium on Linux has no print dialog of its own, so the window asks the desktop through the XDG print portal for every print: window.print(), print.page(), print.element(), print.files() and pages printed from guests. People choose the printer, pages, paper, orientation, copies, two-sided printing and color in the desktop’s dialog, which stays over the window that printed. The printer and paper they chose are offered first the next time the app prints.

Pages, images and text are laid out on the paper, orientation and pages chosen in the dialog, and the desktop applies the rest without asking again. A job of only PDF files goes to the desktop as it is, so the dialog chooses its pages and the printer lays them out.

Pages print through Chromium with the system’s print dialog. print.files() puts the files into one PDF, with images and text laid out on the paper used in the person’s region, and prints it through the same dialog. It resolves once the dialog opens.

Pages print through Chromium with the system’s print dialog. print.files() puts the files into one PDF, with images and text laid out on the default printer’s paper, and prints it through the same dialog. It resolves once the dialog opens.

Saving as PDF

Sabine has no API that writes a page to a PDF file without a dialog. People save PDFs through the print dialog, with the PDF printer or “Save as PDF” option their desktop offers.

Guests covers pages embedded in a window, which print the same way.
Resources and files covers reaching local files from the page.