flutter_print #

A Flutter plugin focusing on print, that's it.

PDF and image files are rendered natively on every platform.

All other file types (HTML, plain text, Office documents, …) are forwarded to the platform's default handler for that format. PrintOptions fields other than printerName may not be forwarded in this case.

Widgets are rendered as image in a (single page) pdf.

Usage #

Basic print #

import 'package:flutter_print/flutter_print.dart';

// List available printers
final List<PrinterInfo> printers = await FlutterPrint.listPrinters();

// Print with default settings
await FlutterPrint.print('/path/to/document.pdf');

// On the web `filePath` must be a URL accessible from the page's origin.
// The browser's native print dialog (which includes a preview) is always shown.
// Blob URL is OK too.
await FlutterPrint.print('https://example.com/document.pdf');

Print with options #

await FlutterPrint.print(
  '/path/to/document.pdf',
  options: PrintOptions(
    // Target a specific printer (uses system default when omitted).
    printerName: 'my_printer',

    // Use a named page size preset.
    // Or via PageSize(width: w, height: h)
    pageSize: PaperSizes.a4,

    // Margins in millimetres.
    margins: PageMargins(top: 10, bottom: 10, left: 15, right: 15),

    copies: 2,
    landscape: false,
    color: true,
  ),
);

Widget print #

Render any Flutter widget off-screen and print it directly — no file needed. printWidget rasterises the widget into a single-page PDF and sends it to the printer. previewWidget does the same but returns PNG bytes you can display with Image.memory before printing.

// Print a widget
await FlutterPrint.printWidget(
  (ctx) => Theme(data: Theme.of(ctx), child: MyReceiptWidget()),
  context: context,
  options: PrintOptions(pageSize: PaperSizes.a4),
);

// Preview a widget in-app before printing
final png = await FlutterPrint.previewWidget(
  (ctx) => Theme(data: Theme.of(ctx), child: MyReceiptWidget()),
  context: context,
  options: PrintOptions(pageSize: PaperSizes.a4),
);
Image.memory(png);

Feature support by platform #

† On iOS, with a printerAddress from FlutterPrint.ios?.pickPrinter() (e.g. ipp://printer.local./ipp/print),

§ On Linux it uses xdg-open to open the file in its default viewer.

Option support by platform #

Not all options are honoured on every platform. Unsupported fields are silently ignored.

† On iOS, with a printerAddress from FlutterPrint.ios?.pickPrinter() (e.g. ipp://printer.local./ipp/print).

‡ Windows — options are fully applied for PDF files and image files. All other file types are delegated to their associated application with its own defaults.

§ Linux — requires CUPS.

Image support by platform #

¹ Requires the WebP or HEIC codec from the Microsoft Store (built into Windows 11 for HEIC).
² Requires macOS / iOS 11 or later.
³ Requires the matching GDK-Pixbuf loader: webp-pixbuf-loader for WebP, libheif + heif-pixbuf-loader for HEIC.

Setup #

macOS #

You must add print entitlement to your app:

macos/Runner/Release.entitlements and macos/Runner/DebugProfile.entitlements

<dict>
  <key>com.apple.security.print</key>
  <true/>
</dict>

Linux #

Printer enumeration and direct printing require the CUPS development libraries. Install them before building the application:

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install libcups2-dev

# Fedora / RHEL / CentOS
sudo dnf install cups-devel

# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S cups

When libcups2-dev is absent the plugin still compiles, but listPrinters returns an empty list and print falls back to the lp command-line tool (which requires CUPS to be running at runtime).