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I'm looking for a PDF printer that doesn't ask the user to choose a filename and directory, but simply saves it to a predefined folder with a unique filename.
The print jobs will come from third party applications I have no control of, so I cannot fix this via coding solutions.
Addition: I'm looking for commercial solutions with good support.
Addition 2: It must support 32 and 64 bits Windows.
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Bullzip PDF Printer can also autosave with a predetermined filename.
Iain
Posted 2010-02-02T15:22:06.393
Reputation: 4 399
Chrome 40.0.2214.111 blocks the download with "may harm your browsing experience". User reviews of Bullzip PDF printer at Cnet include lots of malware complaints. Might be legit, but it is off-putting.
– Lauri Harpf – 2015-02-17T12:56:58.9331@LauriHarpf PDFCreator has similar problems. It seems it calls a 3rd-party advertising site during the installation process (fair enough) but runs whatever that site gives it, with admin rights (since the installer has admin privileges by then), and that can indeed be adware/malware (not so good). – Bruno – 2015-03-12T16:16:53.337
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PDFCreator can autosave with a predetermined filename.
Iain
Posted 2010-02-02T15:22:06.393
Reputation: 4 399
2Lain you beat me by 10 seconds you rat :) +1 – Unfundednut – 2010-02-02T15:33:11.173
:oP (It's Iain by the way - Arial sucks) – Iain – 2010-02-02T15:52:31.643
Thanks for your suggestion, but I'm looking for a commercial solution. I tried PDFCreator before and unfortunately it's not stable enough. – None – 2010-02-02T15:55:56.813
1Strange. PDFCreator has always been stable for me. I have tried plenty of unstable, buggy commercial software. Opensource is better - IMHO. – Iain – 2010-02-02T19:55:02.600
2@Marc: With all respect, 'commercial' is not the same thing as 'stable'. I found PDFCreator very stable, even when he was handling 75+ MB of files. – Bobby – 2010-02-02T19:55:50.977
I tried PDFCreator again and found out that it crashes when DEP is turned on. After turning it of for PDFCreator alone, it works. So, maybe I will go for PDFCreater after all. But still I prefer commercial alternatives, because of support. – None – 2010-02-02T20:31:13.267
1A few years ago, I had a problem where PDFCreator required a reboot after install. I emailed the developer and he fixed it. He also fixed a few other minor bugs I pointed out. – Iain – 2010-02-02T21:27:48.847
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Have you looked at the Adobe LiveCycle server, it has core modules for automating PDF creation/generation/conversion.
Its commercial, has a defined support roadmap, and is about as proper PDF as you can get, but is a lot more expensive than other apps here, and is aimed far more at 'Enterprise' solutions.
GAThrawn
Posted 2010-02-02T15:22:06.393
Reputation: 4 176
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If you are looking for a commercial solution, I think Easy PDF Creator can fill your requirements. I have used it to set up a shared network printer with automatic saving (creates the PDF in a predetermined directory) for a similar sounding situation as what you describe. Can setup locally in a similar fashion as well of course. It was very flexible and once set I didn't really ever have to worry about it.
Insomnic
Posted 2010-02-02T15:22:06.393
Reputation: 756
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work/install on 64 bits systems. – None – 2010-02-02T17:58:47.890
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Depending on your platform, the PDF printer for CUPS might be an ideal solution. I've used it before on OS X and it's worked great. (Just tell it where to throw the PDFs, set it as your default printer, and you're good to go.) Apple is the official maintainer of CUPS, but I'm not sure of commercial support. I really don't know much about how it's implemented, but it could meet your needs: http://www.codepoetry.net/projects/cups-pdf-for-mosx.
Benjamin Oakes
Posted 2010-02-02T15:22:06.393
Reputation: 2 585
I need it for Windows, so I can't use this one. – None – 2010-02-02T18:00:50.163
In a pinch, you should be able to make this a shared printer on either OS X or Linux and then use it on Windows. A last resort, maybe? :) – Benjamin Oakes – 2010-02-02T22:06:32.813
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PrimoPDF can be used from the command line too (it has a GUI but it can be used without a GUI too). It has a free version and a commertional one called nitroPDF.
Attila O.
Posted 2010-02-02T15:22:06.393
Reputation: 1 200
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PDF24 Creator is exacty what you are looking for. And it is even free.
Just open pdf24-Settings.exe and choose the Folder and file naming conventions you like. Every print to this Printer will create a PDF file according your Settings.
Here is a screenshot of the print settings:
Michael Hutter
Posted 2010-02-02T15:22:06.393
Reputation: 101
@bertieb Thanks - that's better to see the screenshot directly :-) – Michael Hutter – 2018-04-25T11:17:57.227
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If you just want to convert a url or HTML file to a PDF via the command line then I have found this open source tool wkhtmltopdf useful.
Interestingly wkhtmltopdf uses webkit for its rendering so you get the same kind of output as you might from Google Chrome or Safari. Many other solutions roll their own HTML renderer which aren't nearly as good as a browser that has been tweaked to deal with real world HTML.
Note I had to use the -l (low quality) option with the larger pages I am converting:
wkhtmltopdf.exe -l http://http://superuser.com c:\temp\mypdf.pdf
You could then use a batch file or a programming language to loop through a list of file full of urls in order to convert them.
Matthew Lock
Posted 2010-02-02T15:22:06.393
Reputation: 4 254
This looks like a near exact duplicate of http://superuser.com/questions/102302/need-a-fast-reliable-pdf-printer. I hypothesize the OP from my link didn't like the answers and is giving it another go.
– rodey – 2010-02-02T18:04:24.257I hope that you don't mean that I'm that person, as I'm certainly not. And besides that the question isn't really the same ... – None – 2010-02-02T20:28:57.280