[Gavin]

Hi,

I'd like to set up a virtual printer that takes a print job and saves it as a PDF file.

OSX can do this natively through the print interface but I have some windows machines that need help. Specifically I have a program we use at the office that generates filled out forms. It has it's own print mechanism - just a button with no print dialog at all and no print preview, unbelievable but true. It does let you choose a printer though.

My idea is that I can make a printer available to the network which is really a script or something. I want to create a pdf file for quick preview without printing one and for sending as email.

I have a network with OSX, XP Pro and Linux machines so there must be a way to make this work on one of them.

TIA for any help, pointers or links.

[Gavin]

OK, I've been poking around the net and found a solution for adding a printer to CUPS that takes the file, turns it into a PDF, then emails it to you.

I have managed to get it mostly working.
It emails me the CUPS test print page from the web interface, works great. But I can't get it to queue up normal print jobs from applications.

The application bundles it up and sends it without error but it never show in the mail queue in print center like the CUPS test page does. I find nothing in any error log files but the print job is listed under completed jobs in CUPS web admin. They just seem to vanish before they reach the virtual printer.

Any help with this would be appreciated.

I installed gimp print
http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net

cups-mailto is the key part:

http://cups-mailto.sourceforge.net/

there are 3 files to add to the various cups directories.

you need to have sendmail running


You create the printer in print center like adding any other printer.



I may whip up a how-to if anyone is interested.

[Gavin]

OK, got it working.

The problem with printing from a Mac app is that the mac sends a data structure to the printer as one of the parameters instead of a path to the queued print file.

It would probly work with some tweaking to the printer script. I'd need to know more about the data structure and how to parse it via a shell script, blah blah blah. It doesn't matter as PDF preview is native to the mac.

Anyway, it works just fine for windows machines printing over the network. I set up the virtual printer on an iMac at the office and shared it with samba. The windows machines on the network can add it to thier printer list by browsing for it just like any shared windows printer. When you print you get a PDF file in your mailbox 20 seconds later.

The trick is to use an apple printer driver when you add the printer to the win box. Color lazer writer, etc. Other drivers can have funny results.

I've already used it to speed up office document flow. The old procedure was to print out a form or pages of web based data and then faxing all the pages or just storing the paper pages in a manila folder. The new way is print to PDF for sending as an email attachment.

I figure we're saving about 1 hour and 2 trees a day.