Turn Your Linux Box Into A PDF-Making Machine

Linux.com :: Turn your Linux box into a PDF-maki... http://www.linux.
com/archive/feed/61826
Linux.com
Search
Search Search
Log in | Create Account | Submit Story
Articles
Case studies
Features
News
NewsVac
Reviews
Documentation
What Are Linux HOWTOs?
Where Can I Get Linux HOWTOs?
HOWTO Translations
Categorized List of HOWTOs
Single list of HOWTOs
Single list of mini-HOWTOs
Unmaintained HOWTOs
Writing and Submitting a HOWTO
Copyright Information
Distributions
Forums
About Us
What is Linux?
Learn about Linux
Download Linux
Get Linux help
Feeds
Features
News Feeds
Forums
News
1 of 17 03/05/2011 03:30 μμ
Linux.com :: Turn your Linux box into a PDF-maki... http://www.linux.com/archive/feed/61826
Video
Answers
Special Offers
Get special offers on:
Linux
Application Dev
Programming
Software
Email:
Submit
Secure Your Server Now

with the Atomicorp Unified Threat Manager
for Red Hat and CentOS.
www.atomicorp.com
Feature
Turn your Linux box into a PDF-making machine
By Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier on May 08, 2007 (8:00:00 AM)
Share Print Comments
Remember the paperless office? By now we were supposed to be handling all of

our documents digitally, and saving trees by using computers to handle
everything electronically. If you'd like to make backup copies of ephemeral
content without printing it out, turn your Linux box into a PDF generation
device for your entire network.
What sort of things might you want to save as PDFs? When you buy stuff online,
virtually every site provides a receipt, which you may want later if the order
email is lost or if you need to send in a receipt for expense reports. However,
you may not want to print all of them out just to keep them around, and Firefox
only supports writing to PostScript, rather than PDF.
2 of 17 03/05/2011 03:30 μμ
What you'll need is a Linux box with the Common UNIX Printing System (CUPS)
and the CUPS-PDF driver. I set this up on Ubuntu Feisty, but it should work on
any Linux distro with CUPS and the CUPS-PDF driver.
By default, CUPS-PDF is not installed, so grab it by using sudo apt-get install

cups-pdf. You should then be able to add a fake printer that will convert print jobs
to PDF files. Go to System -> Administration -> Printing to bring up the Printer
configuration dialog. Select New Printer from the toolbar, and walk through the
New Printer Wizard. You can give the printer pretty much any name you want.
PDF seems like a logical choice. The Description and Location fields are
optional.
On the next screen, when asked to select a connection, choose Virtual Printer,
and leave the device URI as it is: cups-pdf:/. Next, on the screen where you can
select a Printer from the database, choose Generic. On the next screen, choose
PostScript as the Model and as the driver for the printer. Then you'll see a
screen that says "Going to create a new printer PDF at cups-pdf:/." Click Apply
and you should have a virtual PDF printer.
Now you should be able to create PDF files from most Linux apps by sending
your print jobs to the PDF printer. When you send jobs to the printer, they'll be
saved to a directory under your home directory that's named after the virtual
printer -- so if you choose PDF as the name of your virtual printer, then the jobs
will be sent to /home/yourusername/PDF.
Most Linux apps are fairly well-behaved, but I've noticed that some jobs come
through as zero-length files even though the applications don't indicate any
problems when printing. For example, Opera happily prints to the virtual
printer, but the resulting jobs are empty files. Firefox and Thunderbird print to
the virtual printer just fine.
Many GNOME and KDE apps now have the ability to print directly to PDF or
export a file to PDF, so it's not necessary to utilize the virtual printer. However,
where the PDF printer comes in really handy is if you have one or more
Windows machines on your network and you'd like to generate PDFs from
Windows apps without spending the money on Adobe's tools.
Sharing with Windows
It's fairly straightforward to set up sharing with Windows. You'll need to make
some simple edits to the CUPS configuration file. On Ubuntu, use sudo vi
/etc/cups/cupsd.conf.
First, make sure that you have the port set correctly:
# Allow remote access
3 of 17 03/05/2011 03:30 μμ
Port 631
Listen /var/run/cups/cups.sock
Browsing On
BrowseOrder allow,deny
BrowseAllow @LOCAL
BrowseAddress @LOCAL
DefaultAuthType Basic
Then, under the first Location directive, you'll want to have something like this:
<Location />
# Allow remote administration...
Order allow,deny
Allow From 127.0.0.1
Allow From 10.0.0.*
</Location>
The line you want to change is Allow From 10.0.0.* . You'll want to make sure that
the IP address reflects your network.
Next, restart CUPS:
sudo /etc/init.d/cupsys restart
Now you can set up the new printer on Windows. In the Add Printer Wizard in
Windows, you'll select "Connect to a printer on the Internet or on a home office
network:" and set the URL as http://ipaddress/printers/PDF. Windows should see
the printer. Now it's time to choose the printer driver. I Googled a bit and found
that the consensus seems to be that if you want color PDFs, the HP 1200C/PS
driver is the way to go.
Finish walking through the wizard and try to print. If you succeed you will find a
PDF waiting for you on your Ubuntu system. By default, if you print to the Linux
machine, the PDF files will be saved to /var/spool/cups-pdf/ANONYMOUS. This
is in contrast to printing locally, which saves as /home/yourusername/PDF. To
change the directory, uncomment this line:
#AnonDirName /var/spool/cups-pdf/ANONYMOUS
and modify it. For example, if you want to print to your home directory under a
directory called shared, you could use:
AnonDirName /home/shared
Restart CUPS again and you should be golden.
With any luck, armed with a new PDF "printing" machine, you can make copies
of documents you want to save without having to kill a tree in the process.
4 of 17 03/05/2011 03:30 μμ
Share Print Comments
Related Links
Last 5 articles by this author:
It's time to retire the mom test Sep 08, 2007

A look at VMware Fusion Sep 06, 2007
On GNOME's 10th anniversary, de Icaza and Waugh look back, ahead
Aug 28, 2007
Sunny forecast for Linux kernel predictions Aug 15, 2007
Ubuntu tries to go LoCo in all 50 states Aug 14, 2007
Sponsored links:
Best deals: Technology
Comments
on Turn your Linux box into a PDF-making machine
Note: Comments are owned by the poster. We are not responsible for their
content.
making pdf files
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 10, 2007 11:50 AM

If you don't have cups-pdf, simply choose any printer on your list, and select the
"print to file" option. Give the file a .ps extension. This
produces a postscript file. Then convert it to a pdf file with the little
command-line utility program ps2pdf (virtually all distros have ps2pdf).
Sharing it with Windows: why not Samba?
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 08, 2007 06:02 PM
CUPS plays well with Samba. Why not use Samba when you want to share the
printer? (or pdf generator).
5 of 17 03/05/2011 03:30 μμ
Re:Sharing it with Windows: why not Samba?

Perhaps 'cuz Samba can be a real pain to install and configure? This looks a lot
easier.
But you're missing the point: this is one solution; Samba is another. That's the
great thing about Linux: there are a lot of great ways to carry out tasks,
regardless of your technical skills.

Samba can be extremely easy to setup. If you don't know how to do it by editing
the configuration files, you can always use GSambad, which just happens to be
in the Ubuntu repositories.

<tt>My way might be a little more complicated but the file is put in the users
directory with the date and time the pdf was created. It is done with samba and
is for windows shares. I use the same hp printer driver that was in the article
for color pdf's. I also have samba setup to load the windows driver to the
windows computer for me. Good directions on how to do that are found at
samba.org.
The Samba entry:

[pdfprinter]
path = /tmp
printer admin = @ntadmin, @administrators
create mask = 0700
guest ok = Yes
printable = Yes
printer name = PDFPrinter
printing = lprng
cups options =
print command = /home/pdfprinter/pdfconvert %s
%U
lpq command = lpq -P'%p'
6 of 17 03/05/2011 03:30 μμ
lprm command = lprm -P'%p' %j

lppause command = lpc hold '%p' %j
lpresume command = lpc release '%p' %j
queuepause command = lpc stop '%p'
queueresume command = lpc start '%p'
The script to do the work:

#!/bin/sh
# pdfconvertemail
# Date Modified: 12/06/2005
#
# Converts text input from a Samba print Spool into a PDF
# then saves that pdf into the users home directory.
#
# Input: Arg 1 = Spool File Name (Provided by sabma)
# Arg 2 = Username of person printing (Provided by sabma)
#
# Output: Produces a Pdf version of the text input
# named for the user, and the date/time
# the job was printed. Thne places that
# file in the users home directory in
# a subdirectory called pdf. If that
# directory is not there it is created.
#
# Requires: date, enscript, ps2pdf, mv, rm, cat, mutt
#
# Retrieve the name of the spool file provided by samba

SPOOLFILE=ècho $1`
# Get the date and time of execution

# Month Abbr Number of Day, Hours Minutes Seconds
DATE=`date +%b%d-%H%M%S`
# Retrieve the Username of the person who printed the job

UN=ècho $2`
# File name to be used

FILENAME=${UN}-${DATE}
# Set the paths needed for execution

OUTDIR=/home
7 of 17 03/05/2011 03:30 μμ
TEMPDIR=/tmp
# the job was printed. Then places that
# file in the users home directory in
# a subdirectory called pdf. If that
# directory is not there it is created.
#
# Requires: date, enscript, ps2pdf, mv, rm, cat, mutt
#
# Retrieve the name of the spool file provided by samba

SPOOLFILE=ècho $1`
# Get the date and time of execution

# Month Abbr Number of Day, Hours Minutes Seconds
DATE=`date +%b%d-%H%M%S`
# Retrieve the Username of the person who printed the job

UN=ècho $2`
# File name to be used

FILENAME=${UN}-${DATE}
# Set the paths needed for execution

OUTDIR=/home
TEMPDIR=/tmp
# Save the full paths to the needed programs

PCL6=`which pcl6`
# Save the spool file into a text file

cat $TEMPDIR/$SPOOLFILE > $TEMPDIR/$FILENAME.pcl
$PCL6 -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=$TEMPDIR/$FILENAME.pdf

$TEMPDIR/$FILENAME.pcl
# Move the pdf file to the users home directory

# if the pdf directory exists.
if [ ! -d $OUTDIR/$UN/pdf ]
then
mkdir $OUTDIR/$UN/pdf
fi
mv $TEMPDIR/$FILENAME.pdf $OUTDIR/$UN/pdf/$FILENAME.pdf
8 of 17 03/05/2011 03:30 μμ
# Remove all temp files and the spool file

rm $TEMPDIR/$FILENAME.pcl
rm $TEMPDIR/$SPOOLFILE
rm $TEMPDIR/$FILENAME.pdf
</tt>
Re: Sharing it with Windows: why not Samba?
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 192.168.1.1] on August 16, 2007 09:15 PM

Current CUPS distribution ( eg. supplied with FC6 or CentOS5) allows seamless
integration of Cups-PDF printer and Samba.
Just install cups-pdf rpm ( the source rpm for FC6 compiles OK on CentOS5)
and restart CUPS. The new printer Cups-PDF is added to the list.
Go to administrator interface and use "Export Printers to Samba" option to
prepare this printer for 'Point'n'Print' installation on Windows clients.
PDFCreator

This allows a Windows box to print to PDF without Adobe's tools as well, and its
free and Free under the GPL:
<a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/"
title="sourceforge.net">http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/</a
sourceforge.net>
It has been very handy for all of my frustrating user base who demands that
their computers "do stuff" while also demanding that they keep Windows.
Seems so oxymoronic some times...
Re:PDFCreator

If I don't hear about this POS product mentioned everytime another PDF
product is in the news this world would be a better place.
9 of 17 03/05/2011 03:30 μμ
Re:PDFCreator

You mean Windows?
Re:PDFCreator
Posted by: Administrator on May 09, 2007 05:30 AM

If people could stop themselves from making nasty comments when others are
just trying to help, the world would be a better place.
Re(1):PDFCreator
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 76.114.147.255] on October 01, 2007 01:20 AM

POS?? This lil' program saved the compnay where I work, a few thousand
dollars. The one neat feature it has, print straight to email.
A little off topic....

Thanks for the details. Can anyone tell me how to optimize PDFs for the web in
Linux? I get a lot of monster files that are quickly and simply reduced in Acrobat
(full version) on win, but I've never been able to figure this out in Linux.
Re:A little off topic....

That depends upon where the source is from. If your source simply converts a
bitmap to PDF (such as several scanners), you are out of luck. On the other
hand, if you are producing a PDF you can manipulate it with GhostScript. Tools
such as ps2pdf and pdf2ps can help. Specifically, look at the -dPDFSETTINGS,
-dProcessColorModel, and -r settings. You can save significant space by
dropping to grayscale and a low resolution. There are many other options, too.
10 of 17 03/05/2011 03:30 μμ

man pdfopt
PDFOPT(1) Ghostscript Tools PDFOPT(1)
NAME
pdfopt - Ghostscript PDF Optimizer
SYNOPSIS
pdfopt [ options ] input.pdf output.pdf
DESCRIPTION
pdfopt uses gs(1) to convert the Adobe Portable Document Format

(PDF)
file "input.pdf" to a so-called optimized form in "output.pdf". Opti-
mization puts the elements of the file into a more linear order and
adds "hint" pointers, allowing Adobe’s Acrobat(TM) products to display
individual pages of the file more quickly when accessing the file
through a network.
Note: input.pdf and output.pdf must not be the same. If they are, the
file will probably be destroyed. pdfopt checks for this.

Thanks, I'll give that a whirl!
11 of 17 03/05/2011 03:30 μμ
Next stop: scanning to PDF

A true "PDF-making machine" ought to make it easy to convert scans to PDF as
well.
ps2pdf works great for the occasional paper form - once you know what to do
and don't mind the extra steps, but it would be nice to have a graphical utility
with preview mode to make the process easier and more accessible to
neophytes.
Re:Next stop: scanning to PDF

gscan2pdf
<a href="http://gscan2pdf.sourceforge.net/"
title="sourceforge.net">http://gscan2pdf.sourceforge.net/</a sourceforge.net>
Re:Next stop: scanning to PDF

Xsane has save to pdf-
<a href="http://xsane.org/" title="xsane.org">http://xsane.org/</a xsane.org>
Thanks!

Thanks for letting me know about cups-pdf. I guess I've overlooked it before.
It's a shame

It is a shame, that not all operating systems have native support for printing to
PDF and PostScript.
12 of 17 03/05/2011 03:30 μμ
Primo PDF - free for windows

For windows users, they can install primo pdf to do this for free.
<a href="http://www.primopdf.com/"
title="primopdf.com">http://www.primopdf.com/</a primopdf.com>
Trees

Paper is a renewable resource. Paper manufacturers support the planting of
more trees than any of us can imagine. Go ahead and print on paper. Saving
PDFs will only save you money (which isn't so bad).
Re:True.

Seems like everyone forgets that. We're not printing on paper from 1000 year
old trees. The ingredients in paper include the 'waste' products from lumber
production.
It's impossible to make a 2'x4' from a twig -- but that twig can be ground into
pulp, spread, bleached, and dried into paper.
Re:Trees

And running the computers 24/7 probably harms the environment more than
when we used a pen the piece of paper.
Re:Trees

That is very true, and everyone should be aware of that. Please save the planet,
13 of 17 03/05/2011 03:30 μμ
don't run your computers 24*7.
Do Linux users need this?

In Linux, one can use "convert" to convert an image to PDF, "ps2pdf" to convert
PostScript files to PDF, and OpenOffice to convert òffice files' (including *.doc
and *.xml) to PDF. Why bother with cups-pdf then?
Re:Do Linux users need this?

Network print for users, save installing software on their machines.
Also, doing network print can bring the processing back to the server, where
you may want to do it cause the workstations are crap.
Easier administration.
Really, there are a bunch of reasons for doing this.
CutePDF

CutePDF does the trick on windows.
<a href="http://www.cutepdf.com/"
title="cutepdf.com">http://www.cutepdf.com/</a cutepdf.com>
Your instruction doesn't work...

Your instructions don't work:
"Go to System -> Administration -> Printing
14 of 17 03/05/2011 03:30 μμ
to bring up the Printer configuration dialog."
On my system, this menu item is not present. (I have openSUSE 10.2 with KDE).
Why do you assume a Gnome desktop without saying so??
Re: Your instruction doesn't work...
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 211.221.130.120] on August 17, 2007 06:22 AM

Doesn't Ubuntu Feisty install Gnome desktop if you go by default installation
procedure? Guess that's why.
What linux really needs

is the ability to create pdfs that retain their links, eg webpages, indexes, tables
of contents etc. PDF print drivers only go so far.
It is frustrating to create a linux document that has its links stripped out when
its printed to pdf.
Are there any apps that can retain links like Adobe Professional?
ps2pdf does it better

tried this and ooffice build in pdf creation tool. Still ps2pdf gave several times
better results.
Great Article

Great article. Inspired me to write this one for Fedora: <a
href="http://www.pronetit.com/2007/05/08/howto-turn-your-fedora-box-into-
a-pdf-making-machine/" title="pronetit.com">http://www.pronetit.com/2007/05
/08/howto-turn-your -fedora-box-into-a-pdf-making-
15 of 17 03/05/2011 03:30 μμ
machine/</a pronetit.com>
Fonts

Whenever I create a pdf under linux (under kde) the fonts look jagged. Any tips
for make crisp looking pdf's?
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 212.2.101.20] on August 10, 2007 01:28 PM

About fonts - I use Kubuntu 7.04, the same problem. Fonts are ugly. Anyway all
that pd2pdf, cute-pdf, pdftk are nothing compared to PDFCreator, Adobe
Acrobat. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. It is high time to create some applications that do that
work in a human way.
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 211.221.130.120] on August 17, 2007 06:25 AM

Well, they are free aren't they? Care to contribute? That is what this OPEN
means.
Can't get this to work....
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 74.61.189.242] on September 30, 2007 10:00 PM

There is no 'virtual printer' option anywhere in my Ubuntu 6.06 add new printer
wizard! Help!
it doesn't work when Apache is running
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 129.118.164.161] on October 02, 2007 08:26 PM

Windows will say that it can't connect to the printer.
16 of 17 03/05/2011 03:30 μμ
This story has been archived. Comments can no longer be posted.
© Copyright 1999-2008 - SourceForge, Inc., All Rights Reserved

About Linux.com - Privacy Statement - Terms of Use - Advertise - Trademark - Ask Linux
Questions - Write for Us - RSS Feed
ThinkGeek - Slashdot - SourceForge.net - freshmeat - Surveys - Jobs
17 of 17 03/05/2011 03:30 μμ

Turn Your Linux Box Into A PDF-Making Machine

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Turn Your Linux Box Into A PDF-Making Machine

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Linux.com :: Turn your Linux box into a PDF-maki... http://www.linux.

Learn about Linux

Get Linux help

Get special oﬀers on:

Secure Your Server Now

By Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier on May 08, 2007 (8:00:00 AM)

Share Print Comments

Remember the paperless oﬃce? By now we were supposed to be handling all of

By default, CUPS-PDF is not installed, so grab it by using sudo apt-get install

Sharing with Windows

Next, restart CUPS:

sudo /etc/init.d/cupsys restart

Restart CUPS again and you should be golden.

Share Print Comments

Last 5 articles by this author:

It's time to retire the mom test Sep 08, 2007

Best deals: Technology

on Turn your Linux box into a PDF-making machine

making pdf ﬁles

Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 10, 2007 11:50 AM

Sharing it with Windows: why not Samba?

Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 08, 2007 06:02 PM

Re:Sharing it with Windows: why not Samba?

Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 08, 2007 08:02 PM

Re:Sharing it with Windows: why not Samba?

Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 08, 2007 08:45 PM

Re:Sharing it with Windows: why not Samba?

Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 09, 2007 01:49 AM

The Samba entry:

lprm command = lprm -P'%p' %j

The script to do the work:

# Retrieve the name of the spool ﬁle provided by samba

# Get the date and time of execution

# Retrieve the Username of the person who printed the job

# File name to be used

# Set the paths needed for execution

# Retrieve the name of the spool ﬁle provided by samba

# Get the date and time of execution

# Retrieve the Username of the person who printed the job

# File name to be used

# Set the paths needed for execution

# Save the full paths to the needed programs

# Save the spool ﬁle into a text ﬁle

$PCL6 -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=$TEMPDIR/$FILENAME.pdf

# Move the pdf ﬁle to the users home directory

# Remove all temp ﬁles and the spool ﬁle

Re: Sharing it with Windows: why not Samba?

Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 192.168.1.1] on August 16, 2007 09:15 PM

Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 08, 2007 08:43 PM

Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 09, 2007 02:27 AM

Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 09, 2007 08:07 AM

Posted by: Administrator on May 09, 2007 05:30 AM

Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 76.114.147.255] on October 01, 2007 01:20 AM

Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 08, 2007 11:01 PM

Re:A little oﬀ topic....

Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 08, 2007 11:32 PM

Re:A little oﬀ topic....

Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 09, 2007 03:40 AM

PDFOPT(1) Ghostscript Tools PDFOPT(1)

pdfopt - Ghostscript PDF Optimizer

pdfopt [ options ] input.pdf output.pdf

pdfopt uses gs(1) to convert the Adobe Portable Document Format