react-to-print

What is react-to-print?

The react-to-print npm package allows you to easily print React components. It provides a simple way to trigger the print functionality for specific parts of your application, making it useful for generating printable content from your React components.

What are react-to-print's main functionalities?

Basic Printing

This feature allows you to print a specific React component. The `ReactToPrint` component takes a `trigger` prop, which is a function that returns a React element to trigger the print action, and a `content` prop, which is a function that returns the component to be printed.

import React, { useRef } from 'react';
import ReactToPrint from 'react-to-print';

class ComponentToPrint extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <div>
        <h1>Hello World!</h1>
        <p>This is a printable component.</p>
      </div>
    );
  }
}

const MyComponent = () => {
  const componentRef = useRef();
  return (
    <div>
      <ReactToPrint
        trigger={() => <button>Print this out!</button>}
        content={() => componentRef.current}
      />
      <ComponentToPrint ref={componentRef} />
    </div>
  );
};

export default MyComponent;

Custom Styling for Print

This feature allows you to apply custom styles to the printed content. The `pageStyle` prop can be used to define CSS styles that will be applied when printing.

import React, { useRef } from 'react';
import ReactToPrint from 'react-to-print';

class ComponentToPrint extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <div>
        <h1 style={{ color: 'red' }}>Hello World!</h1>
        <p>This is a printable component with custom styles.</p>
      </div>
    );
  }
}

const MyComponent = () => {
  const componentRef = useRef();
  return (
    <div>
      <ReactToPrint
        trigger={() => <button>Print this out!</button>}
        content={() => componentRef.current}
        pageStyle="@page { size: auto;  margin: 20mm; } @media print { body { -webkit-print-color-adjust: exact; } }"
      />
      <ComponentToPrint ref={componentRef} />
    </div>
  );
};

export default MyComponent;

Handling Print Callbacks

This feature allows you to handle callbacks before and after the print action. The `onBeforePrint` and `onAfterPrint` props can be used to execute functions at these stages.

import React, { useRef } from 'react';
import ReactToPrint from 'react-to-print';

class ComponentToPrint extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <div>
        <h1>Hello World!</h1>
        <p>This is a printable component.</p>
      </div>
    );
  }
}

const MyComponent = () => {
  const componentRef = useRef();
  const handleBeforePrint = () => {
    console.log('Before print');
  };
  const handleAfterPrint = () => {
    console.log('After print');
  };
  return (
    <div>
      <ReactToPrint
        trigger={() => <button>Print this out!</button>}
        content={() => componentRef.current}
        onBeforePrint={handleBeforePrint}
        onAfterPrint={handleAfterPrint}
      />
      <ComponentToPrint ref={componentRef} />
    </div>
  );
};

export default MyComponent;

Other packages similar to react-to-print

print-js

Print.js is a library that provides a simple way to print content from the web. It supports printing HTML elements, PDFs, images, and JSON data. Compared to react-to-print, Print.js is more versatile in terms of the types of content it can print, but it is not specifically designed for React components.

react-print

React-print is another library for printing React components. It offers similar functionality to react-to-print but is less popular and has fewer features. It is a simpler alternative for basic printing needs.

README

ReactToPrint - Print React components in the browser

Print the content of a React component.

npm install --save react-to-print

Demo

Usage

import { useReactToPrint } from "react-to-print";
import { useRef } from "react";

const contentRef = useRef<HTMLDivElement>(null);
const reactToPrintFn = useReactToPrint({ contentRef });

return (
  <div>
    <button onClick={() => reactToPrintFn()}>Print</button>
    <div ref={contentRef}>Content to print</div>
  </div>
);

It is also possible to lazy set the ref if your content being printed is dynamic. See the LazyContent example for more. This can also be useful for setting the ref in non-React code, such as util functions.

API

Option	Type	Description
bodyClass	string	One or more class names to pass to the print window, separated by spaces
contentRef	React.RefObject<Element | Text>	The ref pointing to the content to be printed. Alternatively, pass the ref directly to the callback returned by useReactToPrint
copyShadowRoots	boolean	Copy shadow root content into the print window. Warning: Use with care if you print large documents as traversing these can be slow.
documentTitle	string	Set the title for printing when saving as a file
fonts	{ family: string, source: string; weight?: string; style?: string; }[]	A list of fonts to load into the printing iframe. This is useful if you are using custom fonts
ignoreGlobalStyles	boolean	Ignore all <style> and <link type="stylesheet" /> tags
nonce	string	Set the nonce attribute for allow-listing script and style elements for Content Security Policy (CSP)
onAfterPrint	() => void	Callback function that triggers after the print dialog is closed regardless of if the user selected to print or cancel
onBeforePrint	() => Promise<void>	Callback function that triggers before print. This can be used to change the content on the page before printing as an alternative to, or in conjunction with, @media print queries
onPrintError	(errorLocation: 'onBeforePrint' | 'print', error: Error) => void	Called if there is a printing error serious enough that printing cannot continue. Currently limited to Promise rejections in onBeforePrint, and print.
pageStyle	string	react-to-print sets some basic styles to help improve page printing, notably, removing the header and footer that most browsers add. Use this to override these styles and provide your own
preserveAfterPrint	boolean	Preserve the print iframe after printing. This can be useful for debugging by inspecting the print iframe
print	(iframe: HTMLIFrameElement) => Promise<void>	If passed, this function will be used instead of window.print to print the content. Use this to print in non-browser environments such as Electron
suppressErrors	boolean	When passed, prevents console logging of errors

Compatibility

react-to-print should be compatible with most modern browsers.

Mobile Browsers in WebView

While printing on mobile browsers generally works, printing within a WebView (when your page is opened by an app such as Facebook or Slack, but not by the full browser itself) is known to generally not work. Some WebViews don't make the correct API available. Others make it available but cause printing to no-op.

We are actively researching resolutions to this issue, but it likely requires changes by Google/Chromium and Apple/WebKit. See #384 for more information. If you know of a way we can solve this your help would be greatly appreciated.

Known Incompatible Browsers

• Firefox Android (does not support window.print)

Known Issues

• Some mobile browser may, instead of printing, open the native Share action instead
• onAfterPrint may fire immediately (before the print dialog is closed) on newer versions of Safari where window.print does not block
• (401): TypeScript errors such as Type 'undefined' is not assignable to type 'ReactInstance | null'.. You likely need to set your ref to initially be null: useRef(null)

Common Pitfalls

• documentTitle will not work if react-to-print is run within an iframe. If react-to-print is run within an iframe and your script has access to the parent document, you may be able to manually set and then restore the parent document's title during the print. This can be done by leveraging the onBeforePrint and onAfterPrint callbacks.

• When printing, only styles that directly target the printed nodes will be applied as the parent nodes of the printed nodes will not exist in the print DOM. For example, in the code below, if the <p> tag is the root of the ComponentToPrint then the red styling will not be applied. Be sure to target all printed content directly and not from unprinted parents.

  <div className="parent">
    <p>Hello</p>
  </div>
  

  div.parent p { color:red; }
  

• The connect method from react-redux returns a functional component that cannot be assigned a reference to be used within the contentRef. To use a component wrapped in connect within contentRef, create an intermediate component that simply renders your component wrapped in connect. See 280 for more.

• When rendering multiple components to print, ensure each is passed a unique ref. Then, either use a unique useReactToPrint call for each component, or, using a single useReactToPrint call pass the refs at print-time to the printing function returned by the hook. If you share refs across components only the last component will be printed. See 323 for more.

FAQ

How can content be hidden/shown during printing?

The simplest way to hide or show content during printing is to use a CSS Media Query.

.printContent {
  display: none;

  @media print {
    display: block;
  }
}

const contentRef = useRef<HTMLDivElement>(null);
const reactToPrintFn = useReactToPrint({ contentRef });

return (
  <div>
    <button onClick={reactToPrintFn}>Print</button>
    <div className="printContent" ref={contentRef}>Content to print</div>
  </div>
);

Can react-to-print be used to download a PDF without using the Print Preview window?

Not directly. We aren't able to print a PDF as we lose control once the print preview window opens. However, it is possible to use react-to-print to gather the content you want to print and pass it to a library that can generate a PDF.

const handlePrint = useReactToPrint({
  ...,
  print: async (printIframe: HTMLIframeElement) => {
    // Do whatever you want here, including asynchronous work
    await generateAndSavePDF(printIframe);
  },
});

For examples of how others have done this, see #484

Can react-to-print be used to change the settings within the print preview dialog?

No. The window.print API does not provide a way to change these settings. Only various CSS hints can be provided, with each browser potentially treating them differently.

Can the ComponentToPrint be a Class component?

Not directly. To print a Class based component you will need to manually forward the contentRef as a prop:

class ComponentToPrint extends Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <div ref={this.props.innerRef}>
        Print content
      </div>
    )
  }
}

function App {
  const contentRef = useRef(null);
  const handlePrint = useReactToPrint({ contentRef });

  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={handlePrint}>Print</button>
      <ComponentToPrint innerRef={contentRef} />
    </div>
  );
}

Why does onAfterPrint fire even if the user cancels printing

onAfterPrint fires when the print dialog closes, regardless of why it closes. This is the behavior of the onafterprint browser event.

Why does react-to-print skip <link rel="stylesheet" href=""> tags

<link>s with empty href attributes are invalid HTML. In addition, they can cause all sorts of undesirable behavior. For example, many browsers - including modern ones, when presented with <link href=""> will attempt to load the current page. Some even attempt to load the current page's parent directory.

Note: related to the above, img tags with empty src attributes are also invalid, and we may not attempt to load them.

How do you make ComponentToPrint show only while printing

If you've created a component that is intended only for printing and should not render in the parent component, wrap that component in a div with style set to { display: "none" }, like so:

<div style={{ display: "none" }}><ComponentToPrint ref={componentRef} /></div>

This will hide ComponentToPrint but keep it in the DOM so that it can be copied for printing.

Setting state in onBeforePrint

Recall that setting state is asynchronous. As such, you need to pass a Promise and wait for the state to update.

const [isPrinting, setIsPrinting] = useState(false);
const contentRef = useRef(null);

// We store the resolve Promise being used in `onBeforePrint` here
const promiseResolveRef = useRef(null);

// We watch for the state to change here, and for the Promise resolve to be available
useEffect(() => {
  if (isPrinting && promiseResolveRef.current) {
    // Resolves the Promise, letting `react-to-print` know that the DOM updates are completed
    promiseResolveRef.current();
  }
}, [isPrinting]);

const handlePrint = useReactToPrint({
  contentRef,
  onBeforePrint: () => {
    return new Promise((resolve) => {
      promiseResolveRef.current = resolve;
      setIsPrinting(true);
    });
  },
  onAfterPrint: () => {
    // Reset the Promise resolve so we can print again
    promiseResolveRef.current = null;
    setIsPrinting(false);
  }
});

Note: for Class components, pass the Promise resolve to the callback for this.setState: this.setState({ isPrinting: false }, resolve)

Changing print settings in the print dialog

Unfortunately there is no standard browser API for interacting with the print dialog. All react-to-print is able to do is open the dialog and give it the desired content to print. We cannot modify settings such as the default paper size, if the user has background graphics selected or not, etc.

Printing video elements

react-to-print tries to wait for video elements to load before printing but a large part of this is up to the browser. Further, the image displayed will usually be the first frame of the video, which might not be what you expect to show. To ensure the proper image is displayed in the print we highly recommend setting the poster attribute of the video, which allows specifying an image to be a placeholder for the video until the video loads.

Electron

react-to-print can be used for printing in Electron, but you will need to provide your own print method since Electron does not natively support the window.print method. Please see this answer on StackOverflow for how to do this.

There is a fully-working example of how to use react-to-print with Electron available here.

link elements not displaying styles properly

Some frameworks such as Ruby on Rails will set media="screen" on <link> elements that don't have screen set. This can cause styles to appear incorrectly when printing. To fix, explicitly set media="screen" on your <link> elements. For <link> elements meant to apply only when printing, set media="print".

Helpful Style Tips

Set the page orientation

While you should be able to place these styles anywhere, sometimes the browser doesn't always pick them up. To force orientation of the page you can include the following in the component being printed:

<style type="text/css" media="print">{"\
  @page {\ size: landscape;\ }\
"}</style>

Set the page size

The default page size is usually A4. Most browsers do not allow JavaScript or CSS to set the page size. For the browsers that do, it is usually done using the CSS page size property. Check caniuse to see if the browsers you develop against support this.

@media print {
  @page {
    size: 50mm 150mm;
  }
}

Set custom margin to the page (29)

To set custom margin to the page,

First, create a function to return the page margin,

const getPageMargins = () => {
  return `@page { margin: ${marginTop} ${marginRight} ${marginBottom} ${marginLeft} !important; }`;
};

Now, within the JSX call this function within the style tags,

<style>{getPageMargins()}</style>

PS: This style tag should be inside the component that is being passed in as the content ref.

Set landscape printing (240)

In the component that is passed in as the content ref, add the following:

@media print {
  @page { size: landscape; }
}

Printing elements that are not displayed (159)

Instead of using { display: 'none'; }, try using { overflow: hidden; height: 0; }

Using pageStyle

pageStyle should be a CSS string. For example: ".divider { break-after: always; }"

Getting a blank page when printing

Many have found setting the following CSS helpful. See #26 for more.

@media print {
  html, body {
    height: 100vh; /* Use 100% here to support printing more than a single page*/
    margin: 0 !important;
    padding: 0 !important;
    overflow: hidden;
  }
}

Another thing to try, especially if you are seeing this issue on mobile browsers, is to set preserveAfterPrint: true as it's possible the browser is causing the print iframe to be removed before printing has completed.

Styles incorrect in print dialog when using grid system

We often (#327, #343, #382) see issues reported where the developer is using Bootstrap or a similar grid system, and everything works great until the user goes to print and suddenly it seems the styles are off. We've found that often the issue is the grid library uses the smallest sized columns during printing, such as the xs size on Bootstrap's grid, a size developers often don't plan for. The simplest solution is to ensure your grid will adapt to this size appropriately, though this may not be acceptable since you may want the large view to print rather than the smaller view. Another solution is to override the grid column definition. Some newer versions of libraries have specific tools for dealing with printing, for example, Bootstrap 4's Display property.

Page Breaks

What to know:

• break-inside (replaces page-break-inside)
• break-before (replaces page-break-before)
• break-after (replaces page-break-after)

Pattern for Page-Breaking Dynamic Content

Define a page-break class to apply to elements which could be sensibly split into a page.

<div className="print-container" style={{ margin: "0", padding: "0" }}>
  {listOfContent.map(yourContent => (
    <>
      <div className="page-break" />
      <div>{yourContent}</div>
    </>
  )}
</div>

In your styles, define your @media print styles, which should include setting your preference for CSS page-break- (see w3's reference for options) to auto, and ensuring that your page-break element does not affect non-print styles.

@media all {
  .page-break {
    display: none;
  }
}

@media print {
  html, body {
    height: initial !important;
    overflow: initial !important;
    -webkit-print-color-adjust: exact;
  }
}

@media print {
  .page-break {
    margin-top: 1rem;
    display: block;
    page-break-before: auto;
  }
}

@page {
  size: auto;
  margin: 20mm;
}

Troubleshooting Page Breaks

If your content rendered as print media does not automatically break multi-page content into multiple pages, the issue may be

• Style incompatibilities with print media rendering
• A need to assign CSS page-break- properties to define how your document should behave when printed

Common Page Break Pitfalls

• A style of overflow: scroll, when rendered to print, will result in cut off content instead of page breaks to include the content
• A style of position: absolute, when rendered to print, may result in reformatted, rotated, or re-scaled content, causing unintended affects to print page layout and page breaks
• Using flex may interfere with page breaks, try using display: block

Handling Scrolling (603)

If you need to print the content of a scrolling container, you may encounter the following issues:

• Unable to control the scroll position, so the printed content may not be what you want.
• Overflow content is truncated, resulting in missing printed content.

To solve these problems, you need to modify the properties of the scrolling container when printing. You can pass a function to the print property, which will be called when printing. In this function, you can use the DOM API to query the scrolling container that needs to be modified, and then modify its properties to control the scroll position.

const customToPrint = (printWindow) => {
  const printContent = printWindow.contentDocument || printWindow.contentWindow?.document;
  const printedScrollContainer = printContent.querySelector('.scroll-container');

  const originScrollContainer = document.querySelector('.scroll-container');

  // Set the scroll position of the printed container to match the origin container
  printedScrollContainer.scrollTop = originScrollContainer.scrollTop;

  // You can also set the `overflow` and `height` properties of the printed container to show all content.
  // printedScrollContainer.style.overflow = "visible";
  // printedScrollContainer.style.height = "fit-content";

  printWindow.contentWindow.print();
}

const handlePrint = useReactToPrint({
  // ...
  print: customToPrint,
});

Simple Show All Content

In addition to the methods in the above example, you can also simply add a CSS class name to the scrolling container when printing to show all content.

Set the container to overflow: visible; height: fit-content when printing, cancel the scrolling behavior when the content overflows, and make the height adapt to the content.

@media print {
  .scroll-container {
    overflow: visible;
    height: fit-content;
  }
}

Note:

• If the styles do not take effect, you can try using the !important modifier.
• The styles provided in the above instructions are for reference only. Complex situations may require more styles to achieve the desired result.

Running locally

NOTE: The library is built and tested locally using Node ^20.

• Clone the repo
• npm ci
• npm start

Related Packages

• vue-to-print: vue3 version of react-to-print

Changelog

3.0.4 (December 24th, 2024)

• FIX 772 Ensure that video elements with an empty src attribute do not prevent printing from continuing. Thanks @Can-Chen