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Cups-Pdf Printing

Table of Contents

PDF Virtual Printer

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CUPS_Setup#PDF_Virtual_Printer

The CUPS-PDF package allows one to setup a virtual printer that will generate a PDF from anything sent to it. For example, I wrote this document in AbiWord and then printed it to the Virtual Printer which generated a pdf in my /var/spool/cups-pdf/neocephas folder.

After downloading the package from the ftp server and installing it, you can set it up as you would for any other printer in the web interface. Select Virtual PDF Printer as the device and choose Postscript -> Postscript Color Printer for the drivers.

setting up CUPS-PDF

Setup

Go to http://localhost:631

"Manage Printers" => "Add Printer"

You are prompted to enter the following three things:

Name — The unique queue name that CUPS will use. May contain only letters, numbers, and underscores (no spaces or other punctuation characters).
Location — (Typically used to tell people where to physically find the device.)
Description — (Typically used to tell people more information about the device or queue than can be understood from the name entered above.)

Only the Name field is required. The other fields are not actually used by CUPS and may be left blank; you can change them later if you'd like.

Name:          cups_pdf
Description:   CUPS-PDF Virtual Printer
Device:        Virtual Printer (PDF Printer)

and choose "Postscript" as Make/Manufacturer, then "Generic postscript Color Printer" for the Model/Driver.

Click on the "Continue" in necessary.

Test print

Click on "Print Test Page".

Check result in /root/PDF.

xpdf /root/PDF/Test_Page.pdf &

Actual printing

Remember to click the cups-pdf printer property and choose color printing. Printed PDF files are in $HOME/PDF directory (documented in /usr/share/doc/cups-pdf/README.Debian)

documented on: 2006.11.21