Print PDF directly from JavaScript

Question

I am building a list of PDFs in HTML. In the list I'd like to include a download link and a print button/link. Is there some way to directly open the Print dialog for the PDF without the user seeing the PDF or opening a PDF viewer?

Some variation of downloading the PDF into a hidden iframe and triggering it to print with JavaScript?

Answer 1

Based on comments below, it no longer works in modern browsers
This question demonstrates an approach that might be helpful to you: Silent print an embedded PDF

It uses the <embed> tag to embed the PDF in the document:

<embed
    type="application/pdf"
    src="path_to_pdf_document.pdf"
    id="pdfDocument"
    width="100%"
    height="100%" />

Then you call the .print() method on the element in Javascript when the PDF is loaded:

function printDocument(documentId) {
    var doc = document.getElementById(documentId);

    //Wait until PDF is ready to print    
    if (typeof doc.print === 'undefined') {    
        setTimeout(function(){printDocument(documentId);}, 1000);
    } else {
        doc.print();
    }
}

You could place the embed in a hidden iframe and print it from there, giving you a seamless experience.