Printing a PDF

[TedHolt]

I'm looking for ideas.

We have an old VB6 program that prints packets of documents. The user fills in some blanks and it spits out three collated reports. The first two come from the i. They're just text files that were converted from SCS spooled files. The third document is a PDF blueprint that is stored on a network drive.

I've been asked to see if we can replace this VB6 program, preferably with something that runs natively on i. (We're at 7.1, BTW.) Obviously printing the SCS reports is no big deal, but printing a PDF file from a Windows box on the network is.

Any ideas?

[EmmanuelW1]

Re: Printing a PDF

See:

http://www.code400.com/forum/showthread.php/8127-Printing-IFS-documents-on-network-printers

Cheers,

Emmanuel

[TedHolt]

Re: Printing a PDF

Thanks, Emmanuel. I had already read that thread and a lot of pages on other Web sites. I'm not comfortable with the techniques that are proposed in that thread. They may work, but they're not officially supported by IBM or anybody else, which means I can't rely on them. For this reason I'm looking for other ideas. Even though we'd prefer a native solution, such may not exist.

[Dave Dutton]

Re: Printing a PDF

Try here: http://www.goering.de/en/home.html
I think the I4WIN product is free and is the only thing needed to print a PDF.

[DAG0000]

Re: Printing a PDF

Ted, if the printer is a PDF capable printer, you may be able to just FTP the pdf directly to the printer.

[EmmanuelW1]

Re: Printing a PDF

OK, I thought Jamie's suggestion in that thread came directly from the InfoCenter.

Cheers,

Emmanuel

[TedHolt]

Re: Printing a PDF

I thought Jamie's suggestion in that thread came directly from the InfoCenter.

It did, but it still strikes me as a kludge. I've tried it with one printer and haven't made it work yet. (I haven't spent a lot of time on it either.)

[TedHolt]

Re: Printing a PDF

Ted, if the printer is a PDF capable printer, you may be able to just FTP the pdf directly to the printer.

I haven't made that work either, Dag, but as I said, I haven't spent a lot of time on this so far.

[jtaylor___]

Re: Printing a PDF

Personally, I've never gotten the FTP method to work properly.

I've tried the utility from YiPs (http://yips.idevcloud.com/wiki/index...ASE/Pdf2PsOutq). It works for some PDF's, but not the ones I really need to print. This might fall into the "kludge" category.

There's also this IBM doc (http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docvie...d=nas8N1015426), but it requires some additional licensed programs.

[TedHolt]

Re: Printing a PDF

There's also this IBM doc (http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docvie...d=nas8N1015426), but it requires some additional licensed programs.

Thanks, J. I had not seen that document. We don't have those two licensed products.

I don't like kludges. I may recommend that we use the new VB. I'm sure it can easily handle the PDF.

[EmmanuelW1]

Re: Printing a PDF

There's always Scott's PRTSTMF utility. (http://www.scottklement.com/PrtStmf.zip)

Please don't call that kludgy :-).

Cheers,

Emmanuel

[TedHolt]

Re: Printing a PDF

Thanks, Dave. I'll look into it.