@lastapp/node-printer

Native printer bindings for Node.js and Electron. Enumerate printers, inspect and control print jobs, and send raw or file-based jobs directly to a printer from JavaScript — on Windows (Winspool) and POSIX/macOS (CUPS).

Maintained by Last.app (last-tech). This is a hard fork of printer by Ion Lupascu. We keep it current with modern Node and Electron and ship prebuilt binaries.

Supported runtimes

Prebuilt binaries are published for Windows (x64 and ia32). On other platforms the module is compiled from source at install time (see Building from source).

| Runtime | Versions with prebuilt binaries | |---------|---------------------------------| | Node.js | 22, 24, 26 | | Electron | 31–43 |

The minimum supported Node.js version is 22.0.0 (engines.node >= 22.0.0). ABI is constant across an Electron major, so any patch release of a listed major is covered.

Installation

npm install @lastapp/node-printer
# or
yarn add @lastapp/node-printer

prebuild-install fetches a matching prebuilt binary for your platform and runtime. If none is available, it falls back to a source build via node-gyp.

Usage

const printer = require('@lastapp/node-printer');

// List installed printers with their jobs and status
console.log(printer.getPrinters());

// Send a raw job to a specific printer
printer.printDirect({
  data: 'Hello world',
  printer: 'My_Printer',
  type: 'RAW',
  success: (jobId) => console.log('sent, job id:', jobId),
  error: (err) => console.error(err),
});

See the examples directory for more, and types/index.d.ts for the full typed API.

API

| Method | Description | |--------|-------------| | getPrinters() | Enumerate all installed printers with their current jobs and statuses. | | getPrinter(printerName) | Get a specific (or default) printer's info, jobs and status. | | getPrinterDriverOptions(printerName) | Get a printer's driver options such as supported paper sizes. (POSIX only) | | getSelectedPaperSize(printerName) | Get a printer's default paper size from its driver options. (POSIX only) | | getDefaultPrinterName() | Return the default printer name. | | printDirect(options) | Send a job to a printer. Supports CUPS options passed as a JS object. | | printFile(options) | Print a file. (POSIX only) | | getSupportedPrintFormats() | List supported print formats. RAW and TEXT are supported on all OSes. | | getJob(printerName, jobId) | Get a specific job's info, including status. | | setJob(printerName, jobId, command) | Send a command to a job (e.g. 'CANCEL'). | | getSupportedJobCommands() | List supported job commands. 'CANCEL' is supported on all OSes. |

To print a PDF on Windows, convert it to EMF first (e.g. with node-pdfium) and send it as EMF.

Building from source

A source build runs automatically when no prebuilt binary matches your platform/runtime. Requirements:

• A C++20 toolchain
  • Windows: Visual Studio with the Desktop development with C++ workload
  • macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools
  • Linux: build-essential
• POSIX only: CUPS development headers (libcups2-dev on Debian/Ubuntu; bundled on macOS)
• Python 3 (for node-gyp)

npm run rebuild

License

MIT

• Original author: Ion Lupascu ([email protected])
• Maintained by Last.app