Unattended printing to PDF file

Share your tips, tricks and favorite iMacros macros, scripts and applications for web automation in general here.
Forum rules
iMacros EOL - Attention!

The renewal maintenance has officially ended for Progress iMacros effective November 20, 2023 and all versions of iMacros are now considered EOL (End-of-Life). The iMacros products will no longer be supported by Progress (aside from customer license issues), and these forums will also no longer be moderated from the Progress side.

Thank you again for your business and support.

Sincerely,
The Progress Team
Post Reply
Hannes, Tech Support

Unattended printing to PDF file

Post by Hannes, Tech Support » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:52 pm

The iMacros PRINT command can not only select "real" printers, but also those "pseudo" printers that save the pages as PDF instead of really printing them.

However, many of these print-to-PDF softwares asks you to enter a filename when the "PDF printer" is about to print. So full automation requires PDF printers that do not ask for a filename but allow for some generic naming of the generated PDF files.

Here's three pieces of software that we came across that allow for unattended "printing":

- eDocPrintPro (http://www.pdfprinter.at/en/home.html)
- eDocPrinter http://www.iteksoft.com
- PDF creator (http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator)

If you know of other suitable PDF printers, feel free to add them to this thread.
Last edited by Hannes, Tech Support on Tue Feb 17, 2009 7:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: added one more PDF printer software
DariusK
Posts: 0
Joined: Mon May 18, 2009 1:26 pm

Re: Unattended printing to PDF file

Post by DariusK » Mon May 18, 2009 1:55 pm

I'm using Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro, and can print to an Adobe PDF printer. After clicking Print, I'm asked for a file name. However, there is a workaround for this. When the printer choices come up, select the Adobe PDF printer, then click on Properties. On the Printing Preferences dialog, see the "Adobe PDF Output Folder" dropdown. Change it from "Prompt for Adobe PDF filename" to some other folder (there is a My Documents\*.pdf, but others can be added by clicking on the adjacent Browse... button). With this setting, it is then possible to loop through multiple page prints (e.g., when printing pages for a variety of lookups).

iMacros 6.50 (iMacros for IE Add-On Build: 6)
Internet Explorer (IE) Version: 7.0.5730.13
WIndows XP (Build 2600) Service Pack 3
Hannes, Tech Support

Re: Unattended printing to PDF file

Post by Hannes, Tech Support » Mon May 18, 2009 2:02 pm

Thanks for sharing, DariusK!
MuseOfLife
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Jul 05, 2009 10:08 am

Re: Unattended printing to PDF file

Post by MuseOfLife » Sun Jul 05, 2009 10:17 am

A lot of pdf creators do not support 64-bit OS. Month ago I have discovered [url=http://www.ronyasoft.com/products/pdf-printer/]Free PDF Converter[/url] in the net. It works perfectly on my 64-bit XP.
Hannes, Tech Support

Re: Unattended printing to PDF file

Post by Hannes, Tech Support » Mon Jul 06, 2009 6:34 am

Thanks a lot!
davygrvy
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Sep 06, 2009 7:31 am

Re: Unattended printing to PDF file

Post by davygrvy » Thu Sep 10, 2009 4:53 pm

Ghostscript with RedMon can do it too, I think. But like all things Ghostscript, much "hacking" is required for the uninitiated.

http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/redmon/index.htm
Hannes, Tech Support

Re: Unattended printing to PDF file

Post by Hannes, Tech Support » Fri Sep 11, 2009 7:43 am

Thanks!
Post Reply