Check Email with Email-Node and Print PDF Attachement

[ebnerjoh]

Hi,

I am searching for a solution to check Emails and print PDFs via the CUPS Printer on a Raspbian.

I am already able to check the Mailbox, but how can I forward the PDF Attachment to a Printer?

Br,
Johannes

[TotallyInformation]

THe server running Node-RED needs to have a print capability set up in the OS I think.

Then you could at least save the PDF to a temporary file and use the exec node to send that file to the printer.

[marcus-j-davies]

FWIW.

For our finance teams in work:
I (using azure), retrieve all emails with PDF attachments addressed to our finance department, then

• Save the PDF temporarily
• Copy the PDF to \\print-server\PrinterShareName

This does not need the printer to be installed on the computer.

I should note, this is a windows setup, and placing a file to the UNC path of the printer adds it to the printer servers spool.

As long as its a PDF, it will print natively - without any need for a print driver or software

might be worth finding out, if you can do the same in Raspbian?

[TotallyInformation]

I was perhaps a bit brief in my explanation (yes, I know, unusual for me!).

You are right of course that there are various ways to use networked printers as well as local ones. A lot depends on what the printer supports of course.

This page has the details of out to output a PDF to a printer via CUPS:

Command-Line Printing and Options (cups.org)

[ebnerjoh]

CUPS is running, I can already print from the command line.

Need to check how I can save the PDF Attachment in Node Red.

Exec and deleting after printing shouldnt be an issue.

[marcus-j-davies]

You should be able to use the file write node.

Just extract the buffer portion from your message (assumably a base64 string), and pass that as payload to the file write node.

Set encoding to base64 - again I assume that is what you get
uncheck add newline

You can set the filename in a msg object also