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cfprint

Last update:
May 18, 2026

Description

Prints specified pages from a PDF file. Use this tag to perform automated batch print jobs. Use the cfprint tag to print any PDF document, including the ones generated by the  cfdocument ,  cfpdf , and  cfpdfform  tag. Also, you use this tag to print Report Builder reports exported in PDF format.

History

ColdFusion 8: Added this tag.

Category

Data output tags

Syntax

<cfprint 
source = "absolute or relative pathname to a PDF file|PDF document variable" 
attributeStruct = "ColdFusion structure that contains standard print request 
key-value pairs" 
color = "yes|no" 
copies = "number of copies" 
fidelity = "yes|no" 
pages = "page or pages to print" 
password = "PDF source file owner or user password" 
paper = "letter|legal|A4|A5|B4|B5|B4-JIS|B5-JIS|any media supported by the printer" 
printer = "string that specifies the printer name" 
type = "PDF">
Note:
You can specify this tag's attributes in an attributeCollection attribute whose value is a structure. Specify the structure name in the attributeCollection attribute and use the tag's attribute names as structure keys.

See also

cfdocument ,  cfpdf ,  cfpdfform ,  cfpdfformparam ,  cfpdfparam ,  cfpdfsubform ,  GetPrinterInfo , GetPrinterList , 
IsPDFFile ,  IsPDFObject

Attributes

AttributeReq/OptDefaultDescription
attributeStruct
Optional
ColdFusion structure used to specify additional print instructions. Individually named attributes take precedence over the key-value pairs in the attribute structure. For information about key-value pairs, see the table in the section attributeStruct.
color
Optional
Color or monochrome printing:
  • yes: print in color
  • no: print in black and white, with colors in shades of gray
copies
Optional
Number of copies to print. The value must be greater than or equal to 1.
fidelity
Optional
no
Whether to print a job based on the print requirements specified. Valid values are:
  • yes: if the job cannot be printed exactly as specified in the print requirements, the job is rejected.
  • no: a reasonable attempt to print the job is acceptable
pages
Optional
all
Pages in the source file to print. Duplicate pages and pages beyond the total count of pages in the document are ignored as long as there is at least one page between 1 and the total number of pages in the document. You can combine individual page numbers and page ranges, for example, 1-3,6,10-20. If you do not specify a value for the pages attribute, ColdFusion prints the entire document.
paper
Optional
Paper used for the print job. The value can be any returned by the GetPrinterInfo function. The following values are valid:
  • na-letter
  • na-legal
  • iso-a4
  • iso-a5
  • iso-b4
  • iso-b5
  • jis-b4
  • jis-b5 For more information, see the section Supported paper types.
password
Optional
The owner or user password for the PDF source file. If the PDF file is password-protected, specify this attribute for the file to print.
printer
Optional
The name of a printer. An example in Windows is \\s1001prn02\NTN-2W-HP_BW02. The default name is the default printer for the account where the ColdFusion server is running. Printer names are case sensitive and must be entered exactly as they appear in the System Information page of the ColdFusion Administrator, or via the GetPrinterList function. For more information, see Usage.
source
Required
Source document to print. Specify one of the following:
  • An absolute or relative pathname to an on-disk or in-memory PDF document file, for example, c:\work\myPDF.pdf or myPDF.pdf. The default directory is the template directory.
  • A PDF document variable in memory that is generated by the cfdocument tag or the cfpdf tag, for example, "myPDFdoc".
type
Optional
PDF
The file type of the document being printed. The only valid value is PDF.

Usage

Use the cfprint tag for automated batch printing of PDF documents. For example, you can run a batch job each evening that generates a report in PDF format and then prints either the entire report or selected pages for review the next morning without user intervention.Most of the cfprint tag attributes are printer-dependent. If a printer does not support a specified attribute, it ignores the instruction. The default settings for the attributes also are printer-dependent. If you set a default printer, only specify the PDF file source and the password, if the file is password-protected.
Note:
The particular printer attributes supported are dependent on the operating system, the network printer server, if there is one, and the printer. The cfprint tag is dependent on the Java Print Service (JPS). Many printers support attributes that are not accessible from JPS. For example, the JPS for a Macintosh OSX running JDK 1.5 supports the fewest printer attributes. Upgrading to JDK 1.6 adds some functionality, but finishing attributes are still not supported.
If the fidelity attribute is set to yes, the job does not print if any of the specified attributes are not supported by the printer. If the fidelity attribute is set to no, the printer accepts the print job and either ignores any attribute it does not support or substitutes a reasonable alternative for the attribute.
To determine which attributes are supported on a specified printer, use the  GetPrinterInfo  function.

Supported paper types

You can use the equivalent page types supported by the  cfdocument  tag, but they are not returned by the GetPrinterInfo function:
cfdocumentcfprint
  • letter
  • legal
  • A4
  • A5
  • B4
  • B5
  • B4-JIS
  • B5-JIS
  • na-letter
  • na-legal
  • iso-a4
  • iso-a5
  • iso-b4
  • iso-b5
  • jis-b4
  • jis-b5

View a list of configured printers

Use the  GetPrinterList  function, or access the list of printers shown in the ColdFusion Administrator:
  1. Log on to the ColdFusion Administrator.
  2. Click the System Information icon located at the top right of the Administrator Console window. (The icon has an "i" on it.)
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the System Information page. Under Printer Details is the Default Printer. Below the default printer is Printers, which lists the configured printers available to ColdFusion, including the default printer. Printer configuration is operating system-dependent. Configure printers outside of ColdFusion.

View the print log

  1. Log on to the ColdFusion Administrator.
  2. Expand the Debugging and Logging topic.
  3. Click the Log Files link. The print.log file appears in the list of log files.

Permissions for printing

If the PDF file is encrypted, the permissions for the file must be set to AllowPrinting, or specify the owner password to print the file. Use the protect action of the cfpdf tag to set permissions and passwords on PDF files. For more information, see Permissions for PDF documents in  cfpdf .
If a Security Manager is installed, the following permission is required in the coldfusion.policy file to initiate a print job request:
grant { permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "queuePrintJob"; };
In Windows systems, the account running the ColdFusion server must have PRINTER_ACCESS_USE access rights for each printer it uses. Even if the printer is configured locally on the system, the printer is not available if the account in which ColdFusion is running does not have the proper permissions.
Note:
By default, ColdFusion installs and runs as the Local System account, which may not have printer queue access rights. For information on running ColdFusion as a specific user, see the following Tech Note: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_17279

attributeStruct

The following table lists the optional attributeStruct key-value pairs that you use to specify print requests:
ElementDescription
autoRotateAndCenter
Adjusts the document's orientation to match the orientation specified in the printer attributes and centers the page in the imaging area:
  • yes: the orientation, if specified, is ignored (default)
  • no: the orientation, if specified, is applied to the document
collate or sheetCollate
Specifies whether the sheets of each copy of each printed document in a job are in sequence when multiple copies of the document are specified by the copies attribute:
  • yes
  • no
color or chromaticity
Specifies color or monochrome printing. Monochrome printing displays colors in shades of gray:
  • yes: print in color.
  • no: print in monochrome.
copies
Number of copies of the source document to print. Valid values are integers greater than or equal to 1.
coverPage or jobSheets
Specifies which job start and end sheets, if any, are printed with a job:
  • none
  • standard
fidelity
Specifies whether to print a job based on the print requirements specified. The following values are valid values:
  • yes: If the job cannot be printed exactly as specified in the print requirements, the job is rejected.
  • no: A reasonable attempt to print the job is acceptable (default).
finishings
Finishing operation to perform after each copy of a document is printed:
  • staple-top-left
  • staple-bottom-left
  • staple-top-right
  • staple-bottom-right
  • edge-stitch-left
  • edge-stitch-right
  • edge-stitch-top
  • edge-stitch-bottom
  • dual-right
  • dual-top
  • dual-bottom
  • dual-left
jobHoldUntil
Date-time attribute for the exact date and time at which the job is available for printing. Valid values are ColdFusion date and time variables.
jobName
The name of a print job.
jobPriority
Integer value that represents a print job's priority. Among those jobs that are ready to print, a printer must print all jobs with a priority value of n before printing those with a priority value of n-1 for all n. Valid values are integers from 1 (lowest priority) through 100 (highest priority).
numberUp
Number of pages to print on a single side of paper. The value must be a number greater than or equal to 1.
orientation or orientationRequested
Orientation of the page to be printed. The only valid value for PDF documents is portrait. To change the orientation to landscape, set the autoRotateAndCenter to yes (which is the default value). The autoRotateAndCenter instruction overrides the orientation instruction.
pages
Pages in the source file to print. Duplicate pages and pages beyond the total count of pages in the document are ignored as long as there is at least one page between 1 and the total number of pages in the document. You can combine individual page numbers and page ranges, for example, 1-3,6,10-20. If you do not specify a value for the pages attribute, ColdFusion prints the entire document.
pageScaling
Specifies how pages are scaled on the paper:
  • fit-to-printer-margins: Reduces or enlarges each page to fit the printable area of the currently selected paper size.
  • reduce-to-printer-margins: Shrinks large pages to fit the currently selected paper size but does not enlarge small pages. If an area is selected and is larger than the printable area of the currently selected paper, the page is scaled to fit the printable area (Default).
  • none: Prints the upper left or center of a page (if autorotated and centered) without scaling. Pages that don't fit on the paper are cropped.
pageSubset
Prints a subset of pages in specified by the pages attribute:
  • all: Prints all the pages in the specified page range (Default).
  • odd: Prints only the odd pages in the specified page range.
  • even: Prints only the even pages in the specified page range.
paper
Paper used for the print job. The value can be any returned by the  GetPrinterInfo  function. The following values are the most common:
  • na-letter
  • iso-a4
presentationDirection
Used in conjunction with the numberUp attribute to indicate the layout of multiple document pages on one side of the paper.
printer
The name of a printer. An example in Windows is \\s1001prn02\NTN-2W-HP_BW02. The default name is the default printer for the account where the ColdFusion server is running. Printer names are case sensitive and you must enter the names exactly as they appear in the System Information page of the ColdFusion Administrator, or via the  GetPrinterList  function. For more information on viewing print logs, see Usage.
quality
Print quality for the print job:
  • draft
  • high
  • normal
requestingUserName
A string that specifies the name of the end user that submitted the print job.
reversePages
Prints pages in reverse order. If page ranges are entered, the pages print opposite of the order in which they were entered. For example, if the Pages box shows 3-5, 7-10, selecting Reverse Pages prints pages 10-7, and then 5-3.
  • yes
  • no (default)
sides
Sides of the paper on which the pages are printed:
  • one-sided (default)
  • duplex or two-sided-long-edge
  • tumble or two-sided-short-edge
usePdfPageSize
Uses the PDF page size to determine the area of the paper printed rather than the paper size. This is useful for printing PDF documents that contain multiple page sizes:
  • yes
  • no (default)

Example

The following example shows how to use the attributeStruct attribute and the cfprint tag to print five, double-sided copies of a letter-sized PDF document, which are stapled on the top-left corner and collated:
<cfset aset=StructNew()> 
<cfset aset["sides"] = "duplex"> 
<cfprint type="pdf" source="myfile.pdf" 
printer="\\s1001prn02\NTN-2W-HP_BW02" copies="5" paper="letter" 
attributeStruct="#aset#">
The following example shows how to specify all of the print attributes with the attributeStruct attribute:
<cfset aset=StructNew()> 
<cfset aset["paper"] = "letter"> 
<cfset aset["sides"] = "duplex"> 
<cfset aset["copies"] = "5"> 
<cfset aset["printer"] = "\\s1001prn02\NTN-2W-HP_BW02"> 

<cfprint type="pdf" source="myfile.pdf" attributeStruct="#aset#">
Printers have a setting called autoRotateAndCenter, which is set to yes by default. The following example shows how to override the default autoRotatateAndCenter setting and use the orientation setting instead:
<cfset aset=StructNew()> 
<cfset aset["autoRotateAndCenter"] = "no"> 
<cfset aset["orientation"] = "portrait"> 

<cfprint printer="myprinter" source="_mydoc.pdf" attributeStruct="#aset#">
To run a print job asynchronously, start a print job in a thread. Do not wait for the print job to be sent to the printer before proceeding. To start a print job in a thread, enclose the cfprint tag within cfthread start and end tags, as the following example shows:
<cfthread name="mythread" action="run"> 
<cfprint type="pdf" source="myfile.pdf" printer="\\s1001prn02\NTN-2W-HP_BW02"> 
</cfthread> 
....
For more information, see  cfthread .

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