Ansible installation of Debian packages

The docs for the apt module state that when the deb contains :// it'll try and download the package. This was added with Ansible 2.1

So, I assume you are using an ansible version before 2.1

Take care with the spaces in yml format should be like this:

  - name: Install prince
    apt:
      deb: http://www.princexml.com/download/prince_11-1_debian8.0_amd64.deb