Intent to Ship: Web Printing API

[Chromestatus]

Contact emails

green...@google.com, byl...@google.com

Explainer

https://github.com/WICG/web-printing

Specification

https://wicg.github.io/web-printing

Summary

Enables deeper integration with printer-related functionality in Isolated Web Apps. This API is targeted at Isolated Web Apps only and it's following the https://www.chromium.org/blink/launching-features/isolated-web-apps/ process. This API provides a set of JavaScript methods that allow developers to query local printers, submit print jobs to the most appropriate printers, and manage print job options and status. To represent these concepts, it relies on the attribute names and semantics from the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) specifications.

Blink component

Blink

Web Feature ID

No information provided

Motivation

The Web Printing API strives to improve the general printing experience with a primary focus on remote/virtual desktop systems by providing a seamless way for remote clients to interact with printers directly in Isolated Web Apps. The proposed API methods unlock proper printer forwarding by allowing the remote client to access essential information about printers on the near side. This eliminates the need for tedious manual configuration, such as setting up virtual printers, and excessive user interactions such as having to click through print job settings twice (once on the remote side & once locally). It also enables remote document rendering to be tailored to the capabilities of the local printer.

Initial public proposal

https://github.com/WICG/proposals/issues/120

TAG review

https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/910

TAG review status

Pending

Risks

Interoperability and Compatibility

Other browser may choose to implement this API.

Gecko: No signal

WebKit: No signal

Web developers: Positive (https://github.com/WICG/proposals/issues/120#issuecomment-1752979770) Positive feedback from Citrix.

Other signals:

WebView application risks

Does this intent deprecate or change behavior of existing APIs, such that it has potentially high risk for Android WebView-based applications?

No information provided

Debuggability

No information provided

Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, ChromeOS, Android, and Android WebView)?

No

Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests?

No
Web Platform Tests are planned for the cross-platform launch. Creating Web Platform Tests will be complicated because this API connects to physical devices and this would require extensions to BiDi driver API.

Flag name on about://flags

enable-printing-web-api

Finch feature name

WebPrinting

Rollout plan

Will ship enabled for all users

Requires code in //chrome?

True

Tracking bug

https://b.corp.google.com/issues/302505962

Launch bug

https://launch.corp.google.com/launch/4427089

Estimated milestones

Shipping on desktop

147

Anticipated spec changes

Open questions about a feature may be a source of future web compat or interop issues. Please list open issues (e.g. links to known github issues in the project for the feature specification) whose resolution may introduce web compat/interop risk (e.g., changing to naming or structure of the API in a non-backward-compatible way).

No information provided

Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status

https://chromestatus.com/feature/5100352332627968?gate=5186894732460032

Links to previous Intent discussions

Intent to Prototype: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CACZWnOqSBA6cxpngy5cutJz9051RLAGgHzmHMijwvDuRTvD0Mw%40mail.gmail.com

This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status.

[Rick Byers]

LGTM1 as an IWA API.

On Wed, Feb 11, 2026 at 4:24 PM Chromestatus <ad...@cr-status.appspotmail.com> wrote:

Contact emails

green...@google.com, byl...@google.com

Explainer

https://github.com/WICG/web-printing

Specification

https://wicg.github.io/web-printing

Summary

Enables deeper integration with printer-related functionality in Isolated Web Apps. This API is targeted at Isolated Web Apps only and it's following the https://www.chromium.org/blink/launching-features/isolated-web-apps/ process. This API provides a set of JavaScript methods that allow developers to query local printers, submit print jobs to the most appropriate printers, and manage print job options and status. To represent these concepts, it relies on the attribute names and semantics from the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) specifications.

Blink component

Blink

Perhaps we should create a component for all IWA APIs or something? We regularly triage bugs out of the top-level Blink component so it's not a permanent home for any bugs.

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[Mike Taylor]

cc iwa-dev@ per https://www.chromium.org/blink/launching-features/isolated-web-apps/#step-6-prepare-to-ship

LGTM2

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CAFUtAY9YoxgdDpAoHYCyLwJSuxG32D_jiR02_pg%2BKMBbbMpqVg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Vladimir Levin]

LGTM3

On Thu, Feb 12, 2026 at 9:51 AM Mike Taylor <mike...@chromium.org> wrote:

cc iwa-dev@ per https://www.chromium.org/blink/launching-features/isolated-web-apps/#step-6-prepare-to-ship

LGTM2

On 2/11/26 8:42 p.m., Rick Byers wrote:

LGTM1 as an IWA API.

On Wed, Feb 11, 2026 at 4:24 PM Chromestatus <ad...@cr-status.appspotmail.com> wrote:

Contact emails

green...@google.com, byl...@google.com

Explainer

https://github.com/WICG/web-printing

Specification

https://wicg.github.io/web-printing

Summary

Enables deeper integration with printer-related functionality in Isolated Web Apps. This API is targeted at Isolated Web Apps only and it's following the https://www.chromium.org/blink/launching-features/isolated-web-apps/ process. This API provides a set of JavaScript methods that allow developers to query local printers, submit print jobs to the most appropriate printers, and manage print job options and status. To represent these concepts, it relies on the attribute names and semantics from the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) specifications.

Blink component

Blink

Perhaps we should create a component for all IWA APIs or something? We regularly triage bugs out of the top-level Blink component so it's not a permanent home for any bugs.

+1 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/d9cccda1-72bd-49b0-aabe-02dad1ae69eb%40chromium.org.

[Chris Harrelson]

LGTM3

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/d9cccda1-72bd-49b0-aabe-02dad1ae69eb%40chromium.org.

[Reilly Grant]

IWA OWNER LGTM (reluctantly)

I am not convinced that this API absolutely requires the restrictions of an isolated context. There are essentially three components:

1. An API for enumerating the printers available on the system and their capabilities.
2. An API for submitting a print job directly.
3. An API for configuring printing options.

(1) is roughly equivalent to the capabilities of other APIs such as getUserMedia(). While exposing information about a user's connected peripherals raises privacy concerns, many APIs successfully balance providing the necessary device capabilities with user control and privacy. (2) is generally equivalent to the window.print() method, but it directly consumes a PDF rather than requiring the content to be loaded first (such as in a hidden <iframe>). (3) provides opportunities for abuse but can be mitigated with sufficient user control.

Overall it seems that with sufficient design work this API could be safely exposed to the web platform. However, given the limited scenarios requiring this capability and the desire for a seamless experience (in other words, fewer prompts) it makes sense to provide this combined set of capabilities under a single API restricted to isolated contexts. I recommend the specification authors continue to collect developer feedback and consider shipping a more limited subset of this API to the web if developer demand exists.

Please create a dedicated issue tracker component for this feature.

Reilly Grant | Software Engineer | rei...@chromium.org | Google Chrome

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CAOMQ%2Bw9qfYfzebhKFqEYEdmd4kcd55-ah96mPD9gaVkpzxfp-w%40mail.gmail.com.