electron, printToPDF from BrowserWindow

Question

I understand the usual method within electron to printToPDF is within the main process to call the following code:-

const {BrowserWindow} = require('electron')
const fs = require('fs')

let win = new BrowserWindow({width: 800, height: 600})
win.loadURL('http://github.com')

win.webContents.on('did-finish-load', () => {
  // Use default printing options
  win.webContents.printToPDF({}, (error, data) => {
    if (error) throw error
    fs.writeFile('/tmp/print.pdf', data, (error) => {
      if (error) throw error
      console.log('Write PDF successfully.')
    })
  })
})

However, what I am trying to achieve is to effectively call printToPDF from within BrowserWindow on the click of a button.

I understand from this: https://github.com/electron/electron/pull/1835/commits/1eba552a8d1ab4479824275f0e0a2cea9337bd8c that printToPDF has been exposed to BrowserWindow, but there is no documentation on how to actually call printToPDF from within a webpage.

A google of it doesn't reveal an example either. Any clues?

Answer 1

renderer.js

const ipc = require('electron').ipcRenderer

const printPDFBtn = document.getElementById('pdfME')

printPDFBtn.addEventListener('click', function (event) {
  ipc.send('print-to-pdf')
})

main.js

const electron = require('electron')
const fs = require('fs')
const app = electron.app
const BrowserWindow = electron.BrowserWindow
const Menu = electron.Menu
const Tray = electron.Tray
const ipc = electron.ipcMain

const path = require('path')
const url = require('url')
const shell = electron.shell

let mainWindow

ipc.on('print-to-pdf', function (event) {
  const pdfPath = path.join(__dirname, '/reports/print.pdf')
  const win = BrowserWindow.fromWebContents(event.sender)
  win.webContents.printToPDF({printBackground: true, landscape: true}, function (error, data) {
    if (error) throw error
    fs.writeFile(pdfPath, data, function (error) {
      if (error) {
        throw error
      }
      shell.openExternal('file://' + pdfPath)
      event.sender.send('wrote-pdf', pdfPath)
    })
  })
})

Answer 2

To export the current window:

// In renderer process

let remote = require('electron').remote

remote.getCurrentWindow().webContents.printToPDF(...)