ScriptX.Services for Cloud

Our cloud service, offered at no cost, enables users to 'print' web content directly to a PDF or XPS file. Once the file is downloaded, users have the flexibility to open, save, or print the document as needed. This service essentially equips your website with a convenient feature that allows users to 'download this page as a PDF/XPS document'.

For example, click the button at the top right of this page to receive this page as a PDF document.

Leveraging current investments

To support customers with current code, we are providing an extensive library that implements an emulation of ScriptX.Add-on in javascript. The emulation will work with both classic '.factory' based code and with  MeadCoScriptXJS based code.

Browser support

Our ScriptX.Services javascript libraries support Edge, Chrome, Firefox and Safari and any modern evergreen browser that supports HTML 5 and ECMAScript 5 or later.

Modern code

Our service exposes a rich  Web API for describing the parameters to use on the print and delivering the HTML content to print.

  • plain text headers and footers,
  • margins,
  • landscape or portrait orientation of the paper.
  • choosing the paper size to use,
  • monitoring of job progress,
  • full html headers and footers,
  • advanced print scaling.

You may want to use your preferred library - Angular, React, Vue, Axios, jQuery etc etc to provide the library for calling a REST API and then extract relevant portions from our libraries on  Github for extracting the HTML to  send to the service [Swagger API Specification].

The choice is yours.

Advantages of ScriptX.Services

 Device and modern browser independence; the host browser and device is not used to to print, print occurs at a server.

 There is no requirement to install code on each users PC (although note we have a for Windows PC version of ScriptX.Services which does require installing code on each PC).

 There is no requirement for the browser user to accept and install a license - license validation occurs at the server.

Notes

 The content to be printed is sent over the Internet when using our cloud based service - this could be a cause for concern with confidential information.

To be clear; the html as displayed on screen sent (securely over https:) to the server along with references to required external resources such as style sheets and images (script references are not sent). The html document is then re-assembled by the server, paginated and rendered.

 This is why we have developed an On-Premise version of the server.

With an on-premise server, any printer available to the server can be used. We gain the advantage of being abe to print from any device with any browser; PC, laptop, tablet even phone but this is a significant difference from the Internet Explorer add-on.

 The Cloud service cannot be used to print content that itself depends on content such as style sheets and images that is hosted behind firewalls or on servers that are addressable locally only.

 We also offer a for Windows PC configuration of the system.

ScriptX.Services for Windows PC enables any browser to be used to print to any printer available to the PC. This is close match to the facilities provided by the Internet Explorer Add-on but for any browser!

 We are unable to intercept the browser menu UI for printing. So, menu options for printing cannot be redirected to use ScriptX.Services. However, Ctrl-P can be interceptd and the browser window.print() method can be overloaded in the usual way with javascript.

 Currently, we utilize the Trident Rendering engine of Internet Explorer 11 in 'edge' mode. This mode is highly capable and offers a significant degree of compatibility with modern HTML standards, which is essential for printing. However, it's important to note that certain content may not print correctly or at all if it's not supported by Internet Explorer 11 in standards mode.

How to work with ScriptX.Services for Cloud

Read on for how to use ScriptX.Services for Cloud.

Or, if hosting the service on your own servers/PCs printing to physical printers not files is what you need then look at our on-premise services and look at our services for Windows PC.

  1. Data Handling: All data remains within your own network, providing better control over data security.
  2. Printing Capabilities: Any printer available to the server/PC can be used.
  3. Network Performance: Fast response times and overall performance since the data doesn't need to travel over the internet.