JoomFAQs includes built-in support for printer-friendly output and syndication feeds. The print view lets visitors produce a clean, stripped-down version of your FAQ content suitable for printing or saving as a PDF, while RSS and Atom feeds allow users and external services to subscribe to your FAQ categories and receive updates automatically.
This guide covers how both features work, how to enable and configure them, and practical use cases for each.
Table of Contents
1. Print View
What It Does
The print view renders your FAQ questions and answers in a minimal, clean layout with no navigation, sidebars, modules, or interactive elements. It is designed to produce output that looks good on paper or when saved to PDF using your browser's "Save as PDF" function.
When a visitor clicks the print button, a new browser window opens showing the print-optimized content, and the browser's print dialog appears automatically.
How to Enable the Print Button
The print button is disabled by default. To turn it on:
- Log in to the Joomla administrator panel.
- Navigate to Content > Categories and open the JoomFAQs category you want to configure.
- Click the Options tab within the category editor.
- Under the Questions Options fieldset, find the Print setting.
- Set it to Show.
- Click Save.
You can enable or disable the print button independently for each category, giving you granular control over which FAQ sections offer a printable version.
Where the Print Button Appears
When enabled, the print button appears at the top of the category view, in the actions bar above the list of questions. It sits alongside other action buttons (such as "Add New Question" for authorized users) and is styled as a light-colored button with a printer icon.
The button is only shown when the category contains at least one published question. If the category is empty, the print button is hidden regardless of the setting.
The print button does not appear on individual question pages. It is a category-level feature that prints all questions and answers in the category at once.
What the Print View Looks Like
Category print view -- When triggered from a category page, the print view displays each question as a heading (<h3>) followed by the full answer content. Questions are listed one after another in a simple, linear layout with no accordion behavior, no icons, and no voting or comment forms. Content plugins are processed on the answers, so embedded media, shortcodes, and other plugin-generated content will appear in the printed output.
Question print view -- Although there is no print button on the single question page by default, the print view is also available for individual questions via direct URL (see URL structure below). The single-question print view displays the question as a top-level heading (<h1>) followed by the full answer content.
Print View URL Structure
The print view is triggered by appending &tmpl=component&print=1 to a standard JoomFAQs URL. The tmpl=component parameter tells Joomla to render only the component output without the surrounding template (header, footer, modules), and print=1 signals JoomFAQs to use the print layout.
Category print URL:
https://example.com/index.php?option=com_joomfaqs&view=category&id=2&tmpl=component&print=1
With SEF URLs enabled and a menu item pointing to the category, this typically resolves to something like:
https://example.com/faq/general?tmpl=component&print=1
Single question print URL:
https://example.com/index.php?option=com_joomfaqs&view=question&id=5&catid=2&tmpl=component
When the tmpl=component parameter is present on a question view, JoomFAQs automatically renders the print template.
Automatic Print Dialog
On the category print view, a small JavaScript snippet at the bottom of the page calls window.print() automatically. This means the browser's print dialog will open as soon as the page finishes loading, so the visitor can print immediately or choose "Save as PDF."
The single question print view does not trigger the print dialog automatically. Visitors can use their browser's native print function (Ctrl+P / Cmd+P) to print the page.
Customizing Print Output
If you need to modify the print layout, you can create template overrides following Joomla's standard override system:
- In the Joomla administrator, go to System > Site Templates > Your Template > Create Overrides.
- Under Components, select com_joomfaqs.
- Choose the category or question view.
- Joomla will copy the view's template files into your site template's
html/com_joomfaqs/folder. - Edit the
default_print.phpfile to customize the print layout.
The override files are located at:
- Category print:
templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/html/com_joomfaqs/category/default_print.php - Question print:
templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/html/com_joomfaqs/question/default_print.php
Since the print view uses tmpl=component, only the component output is rendered. You can add your own CSS, a site logo, or additional formatting to the print template without affecting the normal page display.
2. RSS and Atom Feeds
What They Do
JoomFAQs can generate RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0 syndication feeds for each FAQ category. These feeds contain the questions and answers from that category, formatted as standard feed items that can be consumed by feed readers (such as Feedly, NewsBlur, or Thunderbird), aggregation services, and other automated tools.
How Feeds Are Enabled
Feeds are enabled by default in JoomFAQs. The show_feed_link parameter defaults to 1 (enabled), which means that as soon as you create a category with published questions, feed URLs are available and feed autodiscovery links are added to the page.
There is currently no dedicated toggle for feeds in the JoomFAQs category options UI. The feature is controlled by the show_feed_link parameter, which can be set through Joomla's menu item configuration if you need to disable it for a specific menu item. To do this:
- Go to Menus > [Your Menu] > [Your FAQ Menu Item].
- Open the menu item editor.
- Look for the Show Feed Link option in the menu item's parameters. If available, set it to Hide to suppress the feed links for that particular menu item.
If the parameter is not explicitly set, feeds remain enabled by default.
Feed Autodiscovery
When feeds are enabled, JoomFAQs automatically adds <link> tags to the <head> section of category pages. These tags allow browsers and feed readers to discover the available feeds automatically.
Two autodiscovery links are added:
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0" href="/faq/general?format=feed&limitstart=&type=rss" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom 1.0" href="/faq/general?format=feed&limitstart=&type=atom" />
Most modern feed readers can detect these links when a user pastes the category page URL into the reader's subscribe dialog. The reader will find the RSS or Atom feed URL automatically without the user needing to construct the feed URL manually.
Feed URL Structure
Feed URLs follow a predictable pattern based on the category URL with an added format=feed parameter.
RSS 2.0 feed:
https://example.com/index.php?option=com_joomfaqs&view=category&id=2&format=feed&type=rss
With SEF URLs and a menu item:
https://example.com/faq/general?format=feed&type=rss
Atom 1.0 feed:
https://example.com/index.php?option=com_joomfaqs&view=category&id=2&format=feed&type=atom
With SEF URLs and a menu item:
https://example.com/faq/general?format=feed&type=atom
You can also omit the type parameter entirely, in which case Joomla will serve the feed in its default format (typically RSS 2.0):
https://example.com/faq/general?format=feed
What Content Appears in Feeds
Each feed item corresponds to one published question in the category and includes the following fields:
| Feed Field | Source |
|---|---|
| Title | The question text, with HTML entities decoded and HTML tags stripped. |
| Link | A URL pointing to the category page with a fragment anchor to the specific question (e.g., https://example.com/faq/general#p5). |
| Description | The full answer content, including HTML markup. |
| Date | The question's creation date, formatted as an RFC 2822 date string. |
| Category | The title of the FAQ category. |
The feed's metadata (channel-level information) includes:
| Feed Metadata | Source |
|---|---|
| Link | The URL of the category page. |
| Editor | The "From Name" value from Joomla's Global Configuration mail settings. |
| Editor Email | The "From Email" value from Joomla's Global Configuration mail settings. |
Feed Item Limit
The number of items in the feed is controlled by Joomla's global Feed Limit setting, not by the JoomFAQs category's pagination limit. To adjust this:
- Go to System > Global Configuration.
- Under the Site tab, find Feed Limit (in the "Feed Settings" section).
- Set it to the number of items you want to appear in feeds (the Joomla default is 10).
- Click Save.
This setting applies to all component feeds on your site, not just JoomFAQs.
Feed Output Details
JoomFAQs uses Joomla's built-in FeedItem class to generate standards-compliant feed output. The RSS feed follows the RSS 2.0 specification, and the Atom feed follows the Atom 1.0 specification. Both formats are handled by Joomla's document renderer, so they benefit from proper XML encoding, character set handling, and all other feed best practices that Joomla provides out of the box.
The answer content is included as-is (with HTML) in the feed's description field. Most feed readers will render this HTML, so formatting, links, images, and other elements from your answers will display correctly in the reader.
3. Configuration Reference
Print Settings (Per-Category)
Found in the Joomla administrator under Content > Categories > [Your JoomFAQs Category] > Options > Questions Options.
| Setting | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Show/Hide | Hide | Controls whether the print button appears on the category page. When set to Show, a printer icon button appears in the category actions bar, linking to a clean print layout. |
Feed Settings
| Setting | Location | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Show Feed Link | Menu item parameters (or code default) | Enabled (1) | Controls whether RSS/Atom autodiscovery links are added to the category page <head>. When enabled, browsers and feed readers can automatically detect the available feeds. |
| Feed Limit | System > Global Configuration > Site tab | 10 | The maximum number of items included in any feed on the site. This is a Joomla-wide setting, not specific to JoomFAQs. |
4. Use Cases
Printing FAQs for Offline Reference
Support teams often need printed copies of FAQ content for training materials, reference binders, or situations where internet access is unavailable. Enable the print button on your key categories so that team members can click a single button and get a clean, formatted printout of all questions and answers.
Tip: The browser's "Save as PDF" option in the print dialog is an excellent way to create a downloadable PDF of your FAQ content without any third-party tools.
Sharing a Specific Answer
You can share a direct link to the print view of an individual question by constructing the URL manually (appending &tmpl=component to the question URL). This produces a clean, distraction-free page that is ideal for sharing in emails, support tickets, or documentation where you want the reader to focus solely on the FAQ content.
Content Syndication via Feeds
If you maintain a knowledge base, customer portal, or partner network, RSS feeds allow external sites and tools to pull your FAQ content automatically. Common uses include:
- Intranet dashboards -- Display the latest FAQ updates on an internal company portal by embedding the RSS feed in a feed reader widget.
- Cross-site publishing -- If you manage multiple websites, you can consume the JoomFAQs feed on other sites to display FAQ content from a central source.
- Email newsletters -- Services like Mailchimp and other email marketing platforms can pull content from RSS feeds to automatically generate newsletters when new FAQs are published.
- Monitoring and alerting -- Use a feed monitoring tool to get notified whenever new questions are added to a specific category.
Automating FAQ Distribution
Combine the RSS feed with automation tools like Zapier, IFTTT, or Make (formerly Integromat) to trigger actions when new FAQ items appear. For example, you could automatically post new FAQ questions to a Slack channel, a social media account, or a project management tool.
Customer Self-Service
Add the RSS feed URL to your customer communications (newsletters, onboarding emails, help center footer) so that customers can subscribe and stay informed about new FAQs in categories relevant to them, such as billing, account management, or product updates.
5. Troubleshooting
The Print Button Does Not Appear
- Verify that the Print option is set to Show in the category's Questions Options. It defaults to Hide, so it must be explicitly enabled.
- Make sure the category contains at least one published question. The print button is hidden on empty categories.
- If you are using a menu item with category parameter overrides, check the menu item's settings as well -- menu-level parameters can override the category-level defaults.
The Print Page Shows the Full Site Template
If the print page renders with the full site header, footer, and modules instead of a clean layout, the tmpl=component parameter may not be reaching Joomla correctly. Check that:
- The link includes
tmpl=componentas a URL parameter. - Your Joomla installation has a
component.phpfile in the active site template directory. This is the minimal template that Joomla uses whentmpl=componentis set. Most standard Joomla templates include this file by default.
Feeds Return a 404 or Blank Page
- Ensure that the category has at least one published question. An empty category will produce a feed with no items, but it should not return a 404.
- Verify the URL format. The
format=feedparameter is required, and thetypeparameter should be eitherrssoratom. - Check that you have a menu item assigned to the category. While feeds can work without a menu item, Joomla's routing is more reliable when a menu item exists.
Feed Content Is Truncated
The feed description contains the full answer HTML. If your feed reader shows truncated content, this is typically a setting in the feed reader itself, not a JoomFAQs issue. Check your feed reader's preferences for options like "Show full content" versus "Show summary only."
Feed Items Show Incorrect Dates
Feed item dates are based on the question's creation date. If questions were imported or bulk-created with incorrect dates, those dates will appear in the feed. Edit the question in the Joomla administrator and update the creation date field to correct this.