OS2 World Community Forum

OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical => Applications => Topic started by: Martin Iturbide on March 17, 2015, 11:44:15 pm

Title: PDF Printer
Post by: Martin Iturbide on March 17, 2015, 11:44:15 pm
Hi

It used to be so easy to print on PDF with "PDF Printer", but I just installed it again and it is not working.
What are you using today to print as PDF?.

I have been trying ghostscript 8.71 and 9.16 with "PDF Printer" but it is not working. I'm getting this error when try to print a INF with NewView (picture attached).

Any hints?
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: guzzi on March 18, 2015, 01:45:26 am
Qpdfview and cups. Works like a charm.
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Andy Willis on March 18, 2015, 07:17:47 am
Hi

It used to be so easy to print on PDF with "PDF Printer", but I just installed it again and it is not working.
What are you using today to print as PDF?.

I have been trying ghostscript 8.71 and 9.16 with "PDF Printer" but it is not working. I'm getting this error when try to print a INF with NewView (picture attached).

Any hints?
Possibly the printer driver you are using?  I don't think I had ever used pre-press but just tested it and it worked fine.
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Alex Taylor on March 19, 2015, 04:31:47 am
I just glanced through the source code on Netlabs (which unfortunately is older than the last release, the code for which appears to be lost).

The return code 1 is coming from Ghostscript, it doesn't appear to be a system error. So I assume Ghostscript is at least loading successfully.

There should be a logfile in %TMP%\pdfwrite.msg.  You could try examining it for clues.  It should contain, among other things, the complete command line used to invoke GS, which you might try running manually to see if you get any more information.

FWIW (from looking at the source code), the command line should be:

gsos2  -q -Ic:\programs\gs\gs8.71\lib;c:\programs\gs\gs8.71\..\fonts;c:\psfonts -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dNOPLATFONTS -sFONTPATH=#c:\psfonts -sDEVICE#pdfwrite -dPDFSETTINGS=/screen -dEmbedAllFonts=true -sOutputFile#"pdf_file" "ps_file"

(assuming C: is your boot drive)
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Martin Iturbide on March 25, 2015, 10:12:42 pm
Hi Alex.

I tried to find a "pdfwrite.msg" in all the HDD and I can not find it.

I'm trying to install CUPS and see how it works for me. Does CUPS needs to be installed on the root (C:\CUPS) to work?

Regards
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Pete on March 26, 2015, 12:14:26 am
Hi Martin

Yes, cups needs to be installed to the root of a drive - not necessarily C:

You may find this helpful http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,631.0.html


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Martin Iturbide on June 22, 2016, 12:14:09 am
Hi

I need and update on this thread since we are now on 2016.

I have eCS 2.2 and I noticed that Ghostscript, gutenpring and CUPS are available on the RPM repository.
I'm installing those packages from Arca Noae Package Manager (I just noticed a little conflict with Lars USBCALL.DLL that is newer and located on C:\OS2\DLL).

I want to know if you experienced any issue and if it is ok to delete the older software that came in eCS 2.2 (C:\cups, C:\gs, C:\gutenprint).

On the past CUPS needed to be on the root, did it changed now?

Regards
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Pete on June 22, 2016, 01:40:43 am
Hi Martin

No idea.

Not being into the ANPM/yum/rpm scene I have not kept an eye on the cups version(s) that may be available from that source.

Is there not a readme somewhere in the package? - I guess installation instructions are not necessary though...

I would guess that installation within the "*nixy" directory structure would be the aim of the rpm releases though.


Regards

Pete

Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Dave Yeo on June 22, 2016, 05:00:38 am
Bitwise has taken over CUPS and have been fixing/recompiling it for the UNIXROOT environment. I think they've done most of the basic stuff but really you should ask Sylvan.
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Andi B. on June 22, 2016, 08:05:05 am
I've running the rpm cups 2.x.x, ghostscript, .... since a while. I never had installed gs or cups on c:\ but on my dedicated program partition p:. Anyway I moved out of the way the eCS/warping versions and all of Pauls gs versions I ever tried and cleaned up to use only rpm version which is btw. the first version which works reliable and satisfactory for my needs. My needs are printing mostly pdf files or parts from them via qpdfview to my postscript printer. This never worked reliable with big files before but with the latest rpm verison.

I've installed the ePDF package too and occasionally I create a pdf from applications. Currently with the rpm gs package. No problem so far but not tested very much.

All in all I would say you can get ride of all older gs/cups installations and simply use the rpm version. At least for me this works better than the version before I'm fighting with.

But I use PS printers connected via LAN only. YMMV with other types of printers or connections. Read I never tested the gutenprint or libusb part.
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: roberto on June 22, 2016, 10:22:47 am
Hello Martin,
You can test this, I found in os2-esp yahoo groups spain:
https://es.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/os2-esp/conversations/messages/12027
translate:
> For those cases where the pmpdf not want to convert files to PDF,
> Well when we get a code 1- mistake, or when there fails but does not generate
> Pdf file . You can do the following to generate it :
>
> * * After having tried to generate the pdf , we can search file
> C: \ var \ temp \ pmpdf.ps (create a shadow of this file on the desktop
> Comfort)
> Creeps with the mouse on the PDF writer printer already !!! .

saludos
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Martin Iturbide on June 22, 2016, 02:49:23 pm
Thanks for the replies.

What I want to accomplish is:
1) Use cups/ghostscript from the RPM repository. Which according to Andi B. it is possible.
2) Set CUPS to work as a PDF Printer to generate PDF files from NewView and QPDFView ( I never did that on the past).

Can somebody point me to some documentation on how to use CUPS to create a PDF Printer?

Regards
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Andi B. on June 22, 2016, 04:47:09 pm
Martin, maybe the newer cups2.x.x and GS which I use are in the exp repository only and cups1.4.3 and older GS are in rel repos. I don't know offhand. I read your mantis ticket ....

Quote
1) Use cups/ghostscript from the RPM repository. Which according to Andi B. it is possible.
It is for sure with cups1.4.3 (I mentioned in another thread her long ago) and for current cups2.1.3(?) maybe only if you have setup netlabs-exp repository. As exp repos is not recommended for general use by the maintainers I do not recommend it to you. But if you want to give it a try....

Quote
2) Set CUPS to work as a PDF Printer to generate PDF files from NewView and QPDFView ( I never did that on the past).
QPDFView needs cups to print pdf files. No need to create another pdf file for QPDFview. If you wanna extract some pages from a PDF then I would recommend GSView/GS. When I need to create PDFs from NewView or any other non-QT application (except AOO) I print to ePDF package (which in turn uses a standard PS printer which prints to a .ps file which GS afterwards converts to a PDF). There is no cups involved here for this.

Cups for creating PDFs may be necessary when you want to print from another QT application. I did not try that until now.

Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Martin Iturbide on June 22, 2016, 11:17:00 pm
Thanks for the reply.

I went back to the basics with PMPDF to see why I was not able to print.
It seems that my issue was that I was pointing to the wrong path, since PMPDF looks for the gsos2.exe on \bin\gsos2.exe.

Now it seems to work with ghostscript 9.18-5 installed from ANPM. I just wrote it down here to don't forget about it next year.
http://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Remembering_How_to_Use_PMPDF  (http://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Remembering_How_to_Use_PMPDF)

I'm still not sure how to make ePDF to work, I guess I need to read the documentation and no idea how to print PDF with CUPS yet.
But for the moment I can generate some PDFs with PMPDF.

Regards
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Hermit on March 20, 2020, 10:28:28 am
I went back to the basics with PMPDF to see why I was not able to print.
It seems that my issue was that I was pointing to the wrong path, since PMPDF looks for the gsos2.exe on \bin\gsos2.exe.

Now it seems to work with ghostscript 9.18-5 installed from ANPM. I just wrote it down here to don't forget about it next year.
http://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Remembering_How_to_Use_PMPDF  (http://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Remembering_How_to_Use_PMPDF)
Hi!

I installed according to the wiki link. When I try to send to the print in Seamonkey I get an error from Xcenter
"Jobs printed directly - spooler disabled"

From other applications, printing is going fine.

What could be the mistake?
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: mauro on March 20, 2020, 03:19:09 pm
Hi

It used to be so easy to print on PDF with "PDF Printer", but I just installed it again and it is not working.
What are you using today to print as PDF?.


Hi Martin, my experience with the physical/pdf printer drivers installation has been painless and still works (very strange indeed in my case).
No cups installed, no additional/workaround services, just PM Printer Manager utility installed from Alex page

http://www.altsan.org/os2/printing/

and two drivers choosen from the available installation list: the PScript generic driver associated to my physical Samsung C460 printer, and a PDF Writer given by the PScript Apple Color LaserWriter 12/600.
I'm not sure if have made it too easy in telling, it was more than 1 year ago, just thinking that if it worked for me then it must work for everybody


Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Sean Casey on September 24, 2022, 04:23:13 am
Now it seems to work with ghostscript 9.18-5 installed from ANPM. I just wrote it down here to don't forget about it next year.
http://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Remembering_How_to_Use_PMPDF  (http://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Remembering_How_to_Use_PMPDF)

PMPDF was not working for me as I believe the documents I was printing were relying on fonts that were not available with the current ghostscript (v9.18-7) installed via ANPM.

I initially elected to manually install the prior version of ghostscript (v8.71) via a zip file and point PMPDF to this directory tree, as you describe in your tutorial.  This required that I uninstall v9 ghostscript without impacting CUPS which I use.  I used the "--nodeps" option to do this...

   rpm -qa | grep "ghostscript"

        ghostscript-fonts-6.0-1.oc00.noarch
        ghostscript-9.18-7.oc00.i686

   rpm -e --nodeps "ghostscript-9.18-7.oc00.i686"
   rpm -e --nodeps "ghostscript-fonts-6.0-1.oc00.noarch"

After getting this running, I decided it would be better to keep v.9 ghostscript in case it was needed for something in the future, but only use the Fonts from the older v.8 ghostscript.   So, I reinstalled v.9 ghostscript and copied the fonts directory from v.8 moving it under the v.9 ghostscript directory tree.  I then passed the v.8 fonts directory location to PMPDF using the "Extra parameters to GhostScript" option in the PDF output port.  The override option I used was:

   -lc:/@unixroot/usr/share/ghostscript/9.18/Resource/Font;c:/PSFONTS

See the attached screenshot for the location of the override.

So you can use either v.8 ghostscript without v9 ghostscript installed, or you can use v9 ghostscript with the added v.8 fonts directory and PMPDF override.



Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Sean Casey on September 24, 2022, 04:39:52 am
Can somebody point me to some documentation on how to use CUPS to create a PDF Printer?

I use a PDF printer with CUPS on Linux, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to get this working with the OS/2 version of CUPS.  This same Linux CUPS PDF printer is also available via an SMB share, but the OS/2 version of CUPS is missing functionality to create the SMB printer to point to this printer. This is why I resorted to using PMPDF, but I would have preferred using CUPS, either locally on OS/2, or via my Linux CUPS PDF printer.
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on September 24, 2022, 06:22:16 pm
Sean, Martin, everyone...

...PMPDF was not working for me as I believe the documents I was printing were relying on fonts that were not available with the current ghostscript (v9.18-7) installed via ANPM...

So now that you've got it running, I am curious: what is the advantage of using PMPDF vs ePDF?

I've had ePDF working for a long time...and that included the transition from GS 9.04 (which is the last one I could print with using GSView) to the RPM GS9.18.

Anyways, ePDF gives you a pile more features to control your Document Info, etc...however, sometimes it's nice to just "push a button and get a PDF output", and for that ePDF is a bit cumbersome.

Does PMPDF provide that ease/functionality?

Looking at the readme that seems to be the case, but I would like to hear some real world feedback.

Also, re: ePDF, Martin, this goes back a couple of years, but if you still want that running let me know what info you need and I'm happy to share my config.

Thanks!
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Martin Iturbide on September 24, 2022, 07:09:03 pm
Hi Dariusz

I don't remember why I choose PMPDF, I guess because it was on netlabs, it's open source and was the first thing that I found when I have no idea what to do with CUPS.

Do you have the link to the latest version of ePDF? I want to give it a try, upload it to hobbes, and I will appreciate if you share your config and tips on how to make it work.

If it works for me I will also me a little article on the wiki.

Regards
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Guillaume Gay on September 24, 2022, 09:26:03 pm
Hello *,

Latest post about ePDF from Franck Wochatz

https://www.os2.org/viewtopic.php?t=47

Bye *!

--
Guillaume GAY
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: roberto on September 24, 2022, 10:13:56 pm
Hello
With the PMPDF it has given me a problem, I no longer remember which one. But I can tell you to change the Appel driver for PSprint.Minolta-QMs Magicolor 7300. and without problems.
Saludos
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Martin Iturbide on September 25, 2022, 02:27:06 am
Hello *,

Latest post about ePDF from Franck Wochatz

https://www.os2.org/viewtopic.php?t=47

Bye *!

--
Guillaume GAY

Hi

The link posted there is not working.
http://subsys.de/epdf/download/ePDF299-4.zip
And it is also not archived. I can not find the file.

Regards
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Guillaume Gay on September 25, 2022, 12:20:50 pm
Hola *!

OK. Let's try via another more recent (2021-01-11) link:
  https://www.os2.org/viewtopic.php?t=2769&hilit=ePDF
It's all ,auf Deutsch' but there's a download link to ePDF 2.99-6 on the first post (https://www.os2.org/download/file.php?id=1701).

Note that Franck can be contacted via Facebook, at least.  ;) I don't see why he wouldn't want to see this gem uploaded to Hobbes.

As our German friends would say: ,Tchüß' .
--
Guillaume GAY
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Sean Casey on September 25, 2022, 11:55:23 pm
So now that you've got it running, I am curious: what is the advantage of using PMPDF vs ePDF?

I looked at ePDF, but I wanted something easy to set up and use.  Easy to set up because there's limited OS/2 help available and I would probably be on my own to get it working as both ePDF and PMPDF don't appear to be currently supported. I know Steven Levine, a friend from SCOUG, is using ePDF, and Martin Iturbide had been using PMPDF.   

With PMPDF, I can use any application to print to the "PDF Writer" printer, like I would print to any other printer, and select the location where I want to save the PDF.  It's that simple.  If I want to change the attributes on the output PDF, I can modify the properties on the PDF output port where I can set the PDF Information - Title, Subject, Author, Keywords.

Using ePDF appeared to be a multi step process where I first print to a postscript file, then drag the file to ePDF to make the PDF file.  It's possible to print directly from an application to create a PDF file, but I would have to install other software, such as quePDF, to intercept the print job from the print queue/pipe and invoke ePDF.   

I only had to kill a few grey cells to get PMPDF working, so I'm happy.
 


Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Pete2 on September 26, 2022, 02:54:52 pm
@Martin ePDF 2.99.7 is on Hobbes. I used it at one time, switched to pmpdf.
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: christech on December 18, 2022, 03:58:32 pm
I can’t seem to make PDFPrint work. When I print I don’t get prompted for a file name. Nothing is generated. I checked that CUPS and GS are installed and pointed PDFPrint to C:\use as the instructions showed.
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: David McKenna on December 18, 2022, 05:17:05 pm
Christech,

 PDFPrint does not prompt for a name - it just saves the file by default in /var/spool/cups-pdf/<USER>, then you can rename it. Make sure the 'AnonUser' key in 'C:\etc\cups\cups-pdf.conf' is set to an actual user name. By delault it uses 'nobody' which most likely is not a real user name - I set mine to 'guest'. Also don't use a drive letter if you try to change output directory for the resulting pdf in cups-pdf.conf - use '/@unixroot/use' instead.

Regards,
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: christech on December 19, 2022, 12:52:56 am
I gave up on PDFPrint. I got ePDF up and running. Can't seem to print from Firefox but Lotus Word Pro and Ami Pro work fine. I am using the Apple LaserWriter 12/600 PS driver.
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Dave Yeo on December 19, 2022, 01:07:40 am
Hmm, printing from Firefox etc seems to have broken at some point. Should be able to print to file with PS or PDF. I'll look.
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: christech on December 19, 2022, 05:21:58 am
I was able to print to a PS file from Firefox and then convert to PDF.
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on December 19, 2022, 05:34:00 am
I was able to print to a PS file from Firefox and then convert to PDF.

...but Firefox has the built-in feature to print directly to a PDF...so why aren't you using that instead of the PS=>PDF pathway?

What version of FF are we talking about here?
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Dave Yeo on December 19, 2022, 07:32:19 am
I was able to print to a PS file from Firefox and then convert to PDF.

...but Firefox has the built-in feature to print directly to a PDF...so why aren't you using that instead of the PS=>PDF pathway?

What version of FF are we talking about here?

Does it work for you? Doesn't here.
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Rich Walsh on December 20, 2022, 05:01:58 am
I was able to print to a PS file from Firefox and then convert to PDF.

...but Firefox has the built-in feature to print directly to a PDF...so why aren't you using that instead of the PS=>PDF pathway?

What version of FF are we talking about here?

Does it work for you? Doesn't here.

I've never had it not work! Save the print job to file, then give the filename a ".PDF" extension.
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on December 20, 2022, 05:11:40 am
Dave, everyone...

I was able to print to a PS file from Firefox and then convert to PDF.

...but Firefox has the built-in feature to print directly to a PDF...so why aren't you using that instead of the PS=>PDF pathway?

What version of FF are we talking about here?

Does it work for you? Doesn't here.

Like Rich said, it's basically ALWAYS worked!

Go to File => Print Preview => select 'Print to File' and bam, the PDF is produced.

Is there some kind of a setting maybe that controls this?

I do not see anything specific to this in 'config:about' though...
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Dave Yeo on December 20, 2022, 05:44:18 am
I was able to print to a PS file from Firefox and then convert to PDF.

...but Firefox has the built-in feature to print directly to a PDF...so why aren't you using that instead of the PS=>PDF pathway?

What version of FF are we talking about here?

Does it work for you? Doesn't here.

I've never had it not work! Save the print job to file, then give the filename a ".PDF" extension.

On this install, attempting to do a Print preview results in a popup, "No Printers available, can not do a preview" and the print dialog claims "no printers available" with print to file greyed out.
I have the null printer and the generic postscript printer installed. Booting to a different partition, with the same profile, it works as expected.
Probably something screwed up with my printers on this install. Need to remember the name of the program to nuke the printers and start over I guess.
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Tom on December 20, 2022, 10:54:33 am
Need to remember the name of the program to nuke the printers and start over I guess.

You mean prndrv.exe? (from Faxworks by the Keller Group, IIRC)
Can be found here: https://ecsoft2.org/prndrv-os2-printer-driver-installerdeinstaller
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on December 20, 2022, 01:50:25 pm
Dave,

On this install, attempting to do a Print preview results in a popup, "No Printers available, can not do a preview" and the print dialog claims "no printers available" with print to file greyed out.
I have the null printer and the generic postscript printer installed. Booting to a different partition, with the same profile, it works as expected.
Probably something screwed up with my printers on this install. Need to remember the name of the program to nuke the printers and start over I guess.

In FF there is a 'print_printer' settings in 'about:config' that, at least here, appers to be a 'user set' value (I suspect because I made this selection when telling FF which printer to use). That points to a name of a printer, which in turn has a boat-load of other entries associated with it. Anyways, look that up because maybe FF is somehow pointing to a printer that either no-longer exists, or was somehow screwed up.

I had previoulsy run into a similar issue with PMView actually. I was in the process of cleaning up entries for an old printer of mine (which was physically retired and replaced by a new device). Well, I thought I had caught all the various applications that actualy made use of the printer...lo' and behold, PMView did as well and I didn't catch that before removing the printer device itself. Subsequently that would cause PMView to crash each time I attempted to open the Print function. Took me a while to figure it out, but eventually I did some back-end printer cleanup to fix that.
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Neil Waldhauer on December 21, 2022, 04:33:42 pm
I just printed this thread using Firefox 45 print to file.

6-05-22  23:49          74,267    124  firefox.exe

I don't know how firefox versioning works, so this is the version of Firefox.
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Dave Yeo on December 21, 2022, 06:32:59 pm
it seems to be an ini problem, have to investigate more.
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: roberto on December 21, 2022, 09:19:58 pm
I can also print with seamonkey. To psprint printer.
saludos
Title: Re: PDF Printer
Post by: Andi B. on December 22, 2022, 08:53:13 am
IIRC it works only if you've installed a postscript printer. And a setting in prefs.js (about:config) has to be enabled manually for some versions.